l8Sf 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

BRUCE  PORTER  COLLECTION 
Gift  of  Mrs.  Robert  Bruce  Porter 


THOMAS    CAELTLE 

VOL.  I. 


THOMAS     CARLYLE 


A  HISTORY  OF  HIS  LIFE  IN  LONDON 


1834-1881 


BY 

JAxMES    ANTHONY    FROUDE,   M.A. 

I 

HONOKABT   FELLOW   OF   EXKTKR   COLLEGE.  OXFORD 


TWO    VOLUMES    IN    ONE 

VOL.  L 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1884 

lAll  righia  re9erv«d\ 


TROWt  • 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINOINQ  COMPANY, 


CONTENTS 

OP 

THE    FIRST    VOLUME. 


,  PAGE 

Introductory, *.       .       .       .      i 


CHAPTER  1. 
A.D.  1834.     MT.  39. 

Beginning  of  life  in  Clieyne  Row — First  winter  in  London — 
John  Sterling — Oflfers  of  employment  on  the  '  Times'  not 
accepted,  and  r,  hy — Begins  *  History  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution ' — Carlyle's  inteiin-etation  of  it — Extracts  from  Jour- 
nal— London  society — Literature  as  a  profession — John 
Mill — The  burnt  manuscript — Resolution  to  continue  the 
book — Meets  Wordsworth,         ...... 


CHAPTER  IL 
A.D.  1835.     MT.  40. 

The  first  volume  to  be  replaced — Poverty  and  depression — 
John  Sterling — Maurice  on  the  Articles — *  Sartor ' — Car- 
lyle's theology — Style — Invitation  to  America— Thoughts 
of  abandoning  literature — Reflections  in  Hyde  Park — 
Book  to  be  finished — London  drawing-rooms — First  vol- 
ume rewritten, 2S 


vi  'Contents. 

CHAPTEK  III. 
A.D.  1835-6.     Mt.  40-41. 

PAGE 

Visit  to  Scotland — Hard  conditions  of  life — Scotsbrig — Re- 
turn to  London — Effort  of  faith — Letter  from  his  mother 
— Schemes  for  employment — Offer  from  Basil  Montagn — 
Polar  bears — Struggles  with  the  book — Visit  from  John 
Carlyle — Despondency — Money  anxieties — Mrs.  Carlyle 
in  Scotland — Letters  to  her — '  Diamond  Necklace '  printed 
— *  French  Revolution '  finished, 49 

CHAPTER  lY. 

A.D.  1837.    ^T.  42. 

Character  of  Carlyle's  writings — The  '  French  Revolution '  as 
a  work  of  art — Political  neutrality — Effect  of  the  book  on 
Carlyle's  position — Proposed  lectures — Public  speaking — 
Delivery  of  the  first  course — Success,  moral  and  financial 
— End  of  money  difiiculties — Letter  to  Sterling — Exhaus- 
tion— Retreat  to  Scotland, 75 

CHAPTEE  Y. 

A.D.  1837-8.     ^T.  42-43. 

Effects  of  the  book — Change  in  Carlyle's  position — Thoughts 
on  the  cholera — Article  on  "Sir  Walter  Scott — Proposals 
for  a  collection  of  miscellanies — Lord  Monteagle — The 
great  world — T.  Erskine — Literature  as  a  profession — 
Miss  Martineau — Popularity — Second  course  of  lectures 
— Financial  results — Increasing  fame,        .        .        .         .98 

CHAPTEE  YI. 

A.D.  1838-9.     iET.  43-44. 

Visit  to  Kirkcaldy — Sees  Jeffrey — '  Sartor ' — Night  at  Man- 
chester— Remittances  from  Boston — Proposed  article  on 
Cromwell — Want  of  books — London  Library — Breakfast 
with  Monckton  Milnes— Third  course  of  Lectures — 
Chartism — Radicalism — Correspondence  with  Lockhart — 
Thirlwall— Gift  of  a  horse — Summer  in  Scotland — First 
journey  on  a  railway,  ,        ,        ,        .         .        .        .  124 


Contents,  vii 

CHAPTER  VII. 
A.D.  1839-40.     ^T.  44-4Q. 

PAOB 

Keview  of  Carlyle  by  Sterling— Article  on  Chartism  offered 
to  Lockliart — Expanded  into  a  book — Dinner  in  Dover 
Street — First  sight  of  Dickens — Lectures  on  Heroes — 
Conception  of  Cromwell — Visit  from  Thirlwall — London 
Libraiy — Imj^ressions  of  Tennyson — Reviews — Puseyism 
— Book  to  be  written  on  Cromwell, 145 

CHAPTER  VIIL 

A.D.  1840-1.     MT.  45-46. 

Preparation  for  *  Cromwell ' — Nei-vous  irritability — A  jury  trial 
— Visit  to  Fryston — Summer  on  the  Solway — Return  to 
London  and  work — Difficulties  in  the  way — Offer  of  a 
professorship — Declined, 173 

CHAPTER  IX. 

A.D.  1842.    ^T.  47. 

Sterling  at  Falmouth — My  own  acquaintance  with  him — 
'Strafford' — Carlyle's  opinion — Death  of  Mrs.  Welsh — 
Carlyle  for  two  months  at  Templand — Plans  for  the 
future — Thoughts  of  returning  to  Craigeni3uttock — Sale 
of  Mrs.  "Welsh's  property — Letters  from  Lockhart — Life 
in  Annandale — Visit  to  Dr.  Ai-nold  at  Rugby — Naseby 
field, 195 

CHAPTER  X. 

A.D.  1842.     ^T.  47. 

Return  to  London — Sees  the  House  of  Commons — Yachting 
trip  to  Ostend — Bathing  adventure — Church  at  Bniges — 
Hotel  at  Ghent — Reflections  on  modern  music — Walk 
through  the  town — A  lace  girl — An  old  soldier — Artisans 
at  dinner — The  'Vigilant'  and  her  crew — Visit  from 
Owen — Ride  in  the  Eastern  counties — Ely  Cathedral — 
St.  Ives— 'Past  and  Present,' 218 


viii  Contents. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
A.r>.  1842-3.     ^T.  47-48. 

PAGE 

Slow  progress  with  '  Cromwell ' — Condition  of  England  ques- 
tion—' Past  and  Present ' — The  Dismal  Science — Letter 
from  Lockhart — Effect  of  Carlyle's  writings  on  his  contem- 
poraries— Young  Oxford — Eeviews — ^Visit  to  South  Wales 
— Mr.  Eedwood's  visit  to  the  Bishop  of  St.  David's — Im- 
pressions— An  inn  at  Gloucester — Father  Mathew — Ee- 
treat  in  Annandale — Edinburgh — Dunbar  battle-field — 
Eeturn  home, 238 

CHAPTEE  XII. 

A.D.  1843-4.     ^T.  48-49. 

A  repaired  house — Beginnings  of  '  Cromwell  '—Difficulties — 
The  Edinburgh  students — Offer  of  a  professorship — The 
old  mother  at  Scotsbrig — Lady  Harriet  Baring — A  day 
at  Addiscombe — Birthday  present — Death  of  John  Ster- 
ling,   280 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
A.D.  1845.     MY.  50. 

Summer  in  London — Mrs.  Carlyle  in  Liverpool — Completion 
of  '  Cromwell ' — Eemarks  upon  it — Effect  of  Cromwell's 
history  on  Carlyle's  mind — Eights  of  majorities — Eight 
and  might — Eeception  by  the  world — Visit  to  the  Barings 
— Lady  Harriet  and  Mrs.  Carlyle — Letter  to  Sir  Eobert 
Peel— Meditations, .  300 

CHAPTER  XIY. 

A.D.  1846-7.    JET.  51-52. 

Domestic  confusions — Two  letters  from  Mazzini— Mrs.  Car- 
lyle at  Seaforth — Clouds  which  will  not  disperse — Glori- 
ana — Tour  with  the  Barings  in  Dumfriesshire — Moffat 
and  its  attraction — Carlyle  at  Scotsbrig,    ....  324 


Contents.  ix 

CHAPTER  XV. 
A.D.  1846-7.     JET.  51-52. 

PACK 

Six  days  in  Ireland— John  Mitchel— Ketum  to  London— Mar- 
garet Fuller — Visit  to  the  Grange — Irish  famine— Dr. 
Chalmers— Literature  as  a  profession— Matlock— Sight 
near  Buxton — ^\^isit  to  Rochdale — John  and  Jacob  Bright 
— Emerson  comes  from  America — The  *  Jew  Bill ' — Hare's 
Life  of  Sterling — Plans  for  future  books — Exodus  from 
Houndsditch, 338 

CHAPTEE  XVI. 

A.I).  1848-9.     JET.  53-54. 

Revolutions  of  February  in  Paris— Thoughts  on  Democracy- 
London  society— Macaulay— Sir  Robert  Peel— Chartist 
petition,  April  10— Articles  in  the  *  Examiner  '—Paris  bat- 
tles in  the  streets— Emerson— Visit  to  Stonehenge— The 
reaction  in  Europe— Death  of  the  first  Lord  Ashburton, 
and  of  Charles  Buller— Mazzini  at  Rome— King  Hudson 
—Arthur  Clough— First  introduction  to  Carlyle— His 
appearance, 365 


X 


CARLYLE'S 
LIFE     IN     LONDON. 


INTRODUCTOEY. 

In  Carlyle's  Journal  1  find  written,  on  the  10th  of  Octo- 
ber, 1843,  the  following  words  : — 

Some  one  wiites  about  'notes  for  a  biography '  in  a  beggarly 

*  Spirit  of  the  Age '  or  other  nibbish  basket — rejected  nem.  con. 
What  have  I  to  do  with  their  *  Spirits  of  the  Age  '  ?    To  have  my 

*  life '  sui*veyed  and  commented  on  by  all  men  even  wisely  is  no 
object  with  me,  but  rather  the  opposite  ;  how  much  less  to  have  it 
done  unwisely !  The  world  has  no  business  with  my  life ;  the 
world  will  never  know  my  life,  if  it  should  write  and  read  a  hun- 
dred biographies  of  me.  The  main  facts  of  it  even  are  known,  and 
are  likely  to  be  known,  to  myself  alone  of  created  men.     The 

*  goose  goddess '  which  they  call  '  Fame ' !     Ach  Gott ! 

And  again,  December  29,  1848 : — 

Darwin  said  to  Jane  the  other  day,  in  his  quizzing  serious  man- 
ner, *  Who  will  write  Carlyle's  life  ? '  The  word  rejwrted  to  me 
set  me  thinking  how  impossible  it  was,  and  would  for  ever  remain, 
for  any  creature  to  write  my  *  life.'  The  chief  elements  of  my  lit- 
tle destiny  have  all  along  lain  deep  below  view  or  surmise,  and 
never  will  or  can  be  known  to  any  son  of  Adam.  I  would  say  to 
my  biographer,  if  any  fool  undertook  such  a  task,  *  Forbear,  poor 
fool!  Let  no  life  of  me  be  written;  let  me  and  my  bewildered 
wiestlings  lie  buried  here  and  be  forgotten  swiftly  of  all  the  world. 
Vol.  III.— 1 


2  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

If  thou  write,  it  will  be  mere  delusion  and  hallucination.  The 
confused  world  never  understood  nor  will  understand  me  and  my 
poor  affairs.  Not  even  the  persons  nearest  to  me  could  guess  at 
them ;  nor  was  it  found  indispensable  ;  nor  is  it  now  (for  any  but 
an  idle  purpose)  profitable,  were  it  even  possible.  Silence,  and 
go  thy  ways  elsewhither.' 

Kelnctantly,  and  only  wlien  he  found  that  his  wishes 
would  not  and  could  not  be  respected,  Carlyle  requested 
me  to  undertake  the  task  which  he  had  tliiis  described  as 
hopeless  ;  and  placed  materials  in  my  hands  which  would 
make  the  creation  of  a  true  likeness  of  him,  if  still  diffi- 
cult, yet  no  longer  as  impossible  as  he  had  declared  it  to 
be.  Higher  confidence  was  never  placed  by  any  man  in 
another.  I  had  not  sought  it,  but  I  did  not  refuse  to  ac- 
cept it.  I  felt  myself  only  more  strictly  bound  than  men 
in  such  circumstances  usually  are,  to  discharge  the  duty 
which  I  was  undertaking  with  the  fidelity  which  I  knew 
to  be  expected  from  me.  Had  I  considered  my  own  com- 
fort or  my  own  interest,  I  should  have  sifted  out  or  passed 
lightly  over  the  delicate  features  in  the  story.  It  would 
have  been  as  easy  as  it  would  have  been  agreeable  for  me 
to  construct  a  picture,  with  every  detail  strictly  accurate, 
of  an  almost  perfect  character.  An  account  so  written 
would  have  been  read  with  immediate  pleasure.  Cai-lyle 
Avould  have  been  admired  and  applauded,  and  the  biog- 
rapher, if  he  had  not  shared  in  the  praise,  would  at  least 
have  escaped  censure.  He  would  have  followed  in  the 
track  marked  out  for  hira  by  a  custom  which  is  all  but 
universal.  When  a  popular  statesman  dies,  or  a  popular 
soldier  or  clergyman,  his  faults  are  forgotten,  his  virtues 
only  are  remembered  in  his  epitaph.  Everyone  has  some 
frailties,  but  the  merits  and  not  the  frailties  are  what  in- 
terest the  woi'ld  ;  and  with  great  men  of  the  ordinary  kind 
whose  names  and  influence  will  not  survive  their  own  gen- 
eration, to  leave  out  the  shadow,  and  record  solely  what  is 


Daly  of  his   lj'iO(jrap?tei\  3 

bright  and  attractive,  is  not  only  permissible,  but  is  a  right 
and  honourable  instinct.  The  good  should  be  frankly  ac- 
knowledged with  no  churlish  qualifications.  But  the 
pleasure  which  we  feel,  and  the  honourt*vhich  we  seek  to 
confer,  are  avenged,  wherever  truth  is  concealed,  in  the 
case  of  the  exceptional  few  who  are  to  become  historical 
and  belong  to  the  iminortals.  The  sharpest  scrutiny  is 
the  condition  of  enduring  fame.  Every  circumstance 
which  can  be  ascertained  about  them  is  eventually  dragged 
into  light.  If  blank  spaces  are  left,  they  are  filled  by 
rumour  or  conjecture.  When  the  generation  which  knew 
them  is  gone,  there  is  no  more  tenderness  in  dealing  with 
them  ;  and  if  their  friends  have  been  indiscreetly  reserved, 
idle  tales  which  survive  in  tradition  become  stereotyped 
into  facts.  Thus  the  characters  of  many  of  our  greatest 
men,  as  they  stand  in  history,  are  left  blackened  by 
groundless  calumnies,  or  credited  with  imaginary  excel- 
lences, a  prey  to  be  torn  in  pieces  by  rival  critics,  with 
clear  evidence  wanting,  and  prepossessions  fixed  on  one 
side  or  the  other  by  dislike  or  sympathy. 

Had  I  taken  the  course  which  the  '  natural  man  '  would 
have  recommended,  I  should  have  given  no  faithful  ac- 
count of  Carlyle.  I  should  have  created  a  '  delusion  and 
a  hallucination '  of  the  precise  kind  which  he  who  was  the 
truest  of  men  most  deprecated  and  dreaded  ;  and  I  should 
have  done  it  not  innocently  and  in  ignorance,  but  with  de- 
liberate insincerity,  after  my  attention  had  been  specially 
directed  by  his  own  generous  openness  to  the  points  which 
I  should  have  left  unnoticed.  I  should  have  been  unjust 
first  to  myself — for  I  should  have  failed  in  what  I  knew 
to  be  my  duty  as  a  biographer.  I  should  have  been  unjust 
secondly  to  the  public.  Carlyle  exerted  for  many  years  an 
almost  unbounded  influence  on  the  mind  of  educated  Eng- 
land. His  writings  are  now  spread  over  the  whole  Eng- 
lish-speaking world.     They   are   studied   with   eagerness 


4  Carlyle*s  Life  in  London. 

and  confidence  by  millions  who  have  looked  and  look  to 
Jiini  not  for  amusement,  but  for  moral  guidance,  and  those 
millions  have  a  right  to  know  what  manner  of  man  he 
reallj  was.  It  iiraj  be,  and  1  for  one  think  it  will  be, 
that  when  time  has  levelled  accidental  distinctions,  when 
the  perspective  has  altered,  and  the  foremost  figures  of 
this  century  are  seen  in  their  true  proportions,  Carlyle  will 
tower  far  above  all  his  contemporaries,  and  will  then  be 
the  one  person  of  them  about  whom  the  coming  genera- 
tions will  care  most  to  be  informed.  But  whether  I  esti- 
mate his  importance  rightly  or  wrongly,  he  has  played  a 
part  which  entitles  everyone  to  demand  a  complete  account 
of  his  character.  He  has  come  forward  as  a  teacher  of 
mankind.  He  has  claimed  '  to  speak  with  autliority  and 
not  as  the  Scribes.'  He  has  denounced  as  empty  illusion 
the  most  favourite  convictions  of  the  age.  lS<o  conceal- 
ment is  permissible  about  a  man  w^ho  could  thus  take  on 
himself  the  character  of  a  prophet  and  speak  to  it  in  so 
imperious  a  tone. 

Lastly,  I  should  have  been  unjust  to  Carlyle  himself  and 
to  everyone  who  believed  and  has  believed  in  him.  To 
have  been  reticent  would  have  implied  that  there  was 
something  to  hide,  and,  taking  Carlyle  all  in  all,  there 
never  was  a  man — I  at  least  never  knew  of  one — whose 
conduct  in  life  would  better  bear  the  fiercest  light  which 
can  be  thrown  npon  it.  In  the  grave  matters  of  the  law 
he  walked  for  eighiy-five  years  unblemished  by  a  single 
moral  spot.  There  are  no  '  sins  of  youth  '  to  be  apologised 
for.  In  no  instance  did  he  ever  deviate  even  for  a  mo- 
ment from  the  strictest  lines  of  integrity.  He  had  his 
own  way  to  make  in  life,  and  when  he  had  chosen  his 
profession,  he  had  to  depend  on  popularity  for  the  bread 
which  he  was  to  eat.  But  although  more  than  once  he 
was  within  sig^ht  of  starvation  he  w^ould  never  do  less  than 
liis  very  best.     He  never  wrote  an  idle  word,  he  never 


Duty  of  his  Biographer,  5 

wrote  or  spoke  any  single  sentence  which  he  did  not  with 
liis  whole  heart  believe  to  be  true.  Conscious  though  he 
was  that  he  had  talents  above  those  of  common  men,  he 
sought  neither  rank  nor  fortune  for  himself.  When  he 
became  famous  and  moved  as  an  equal  among  the  great  of 
the  land,  he  was  content  to  earn  the  wages  of  an  artisan, 
and  kept  to  the  simple  habits  in  which  he  had  been  bred 
in  his  father's  house,  lie  might  have  had  a  pension  had 
he  stooped  to  ask  for  it ;  but  he  chose  to  maintain  him- 
self by  his  own  industry,  and  when  a  pension  was  offered 
him  it  was  declined,  lie  despised  luxury  ;  he  was  thrifty 
and  even  severe  in  the  economy  of  his  own  household ; 
but  in  the  times  of  his  greatest  poverty  he  had  always 
something  to  spare  for  those  who  were  dear  to  him.  AVhen 
money  came  at  last,  and  it  came  only  when  he  was  old 
and  infirm,  he  added  nothing  to  his  own  comforts,  but 
was  lavishly  generous  with  it  to  others.  Tender-hearted 
and  affectionate  he  was  beyond  all  men  whom  I  have  ever 
known.  Ills  faults,  which  in  his  late  remorse  he  exag- 
gerated, as  men  of  noblest  natures  are  most  apt  to  do,  his 
impatience,  his  irritability,  his  singular  melancholy,  which 
made  him  at  times  distressing  as  a  companion,  were  the 
effects  of  temperament  first,  and  of  a  peculiarly  sensitive 
organisation  ;  and  secondly  bi  absolution  in  his  work  and 
of  his  determination  to  do  that  w^ork  as  well  as  it  could 
possibly  be  done.  Such  faults  as  these  were  but  as  the 
vapours  which  hang  about  a  mountain,  inseparable  from 
the  nature  of  the  man.  They  have  to  be  told  because 
without  them  his  character  cannot  be  undei-stood,  and  be- 
cause they  affected  others  as  *vell  as  himself.  But  they 
do  not  blemish  the  essential  greatness  of  his  character,  and 
when  ke  is  fully  known  he  will  not  be  loved  or  admired 
the  less  because  he  had  infirmities  like  the  rest  of  us. 
Carlyle's  was  not  the  imperious  grandeur  which  lias  risen 
superior  to  weakness  and  reigns  cold  and  impassive  in  dis- 


6  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

tant  majesty.  The  fire  in  his  soul  burnt  red  to  the  end, 
and  sparks  flew  from  it  which  fell  hot  on  those  about  him, 
not  always  pleasant,  not  always  hitting  the  right  spot  or 
the  right  person  ;  but  it  was  pure  fire  notwithstanding,  fire 
of  genuine  and  noble  passion,  of  genuine  love  for  all  that 
was  good,  and  genuine  indignation  at  what  was  mean  or 
base  or  contemptible.  His  life  was  not  a  happy  one,  and 
there  were  features  in  it  for  which,  as  lie  looked  back,  he 
bitterly  reproached  himself.  But  there  are  many,  per- 
haps the  majority  of  us,  who  sin  deeper  every  day  of  their 
lives  in  these  very  points  in  which  Carlyle  sinned,  and 
without  Carlyle's  excuses,  who  do  not  know  that  they  have 
anything  to  repent  of.  The  more  completely  it  is  under- 
stood, the  more  his  character  will  be  seen  to  answer  to  his 
intellectual  teaching.  The  one  is  the  counterpart  of  the 
other.  There  was  no  falsehood  and  there  was  no  conceal- 
ment in  him.  The  same  true  nature  showed  itself  in  his 
life  and  in  his  words.  He  acted  as  he  spoke  from  his  heart, 
and  those  who  have  admired  his  writings  will  equally 
admire  himself  when  they  see  him  in  his  actual  likeness. 

I,  for  myself,  concluded,  though  not  till  after  long  hesi- 
tation, that  there  should  be  no  reserve,  and  therefore  1 
have  practised  none.  I  have  published  his  own  autobio- 
graphical fragments.  I  have  published  an  account  of  his 
early  years  from  his  Letters  and  Journals.  I  have  pub- 
lished the  Letters  and  Memorials  of  his  wife  which  de- 
scribe (from  one  aspect)  his  life  in  London  as  long  as  she 
remained  with  him.  1  supposed  for  a  time  that  if  to 
these  I  added  my  personal  recollections  of  him,  my  task 
would  be  sufficiently  accomplished;  but  I  have  thought  it 
better  on  longer  consideration  to  complete  his  biography 
as  I  began  it.  He  himself  quotes  a  saying  of  Goethe  that 
on  the  lives  of  remarkable  men  ink  and  paper  should  least 
be  spared.  I  must  leave  no  materials  unused  to  complete 
the  portrait  which  1  attempt  to  draw. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A.D.  1834.     ^T.  39. 

Beginning  of  life  in  Clieyne  Row — First  winter  in  London — John 
Sterling — Offers  of  employment  on  the  '  Times'  not  accepted, 
and  why — Begins  *  History  of  the  French  Revolution ' — Car- 
lyle's  interpretation  of  it — Extracts  from  Journal — London 
society — Literature  as  a  profession — John  Mill — The  burnt 
manuscript — Resolution  to  continue  the  book — Meets  Words- 
worth. 

In  the  summer  of  1834  Carlyle  left  Craigenputtock  and 
its  solitary  moors  and  removed  to  London,  there  to  make 
a  last  experiment  wliether  it  would  be  possible  for  him  to 
abide  by  literature  as  a  profession,  or  whether  he  must 
geek  another  employment  and  perhaps  another  country. 
I  have  already  told  how  he  set  up  his  modest  establish- 
ment in  Cheyne  Kow  in  the  house  where  he  was  to  re- 
main till  lie  died.  lie  had  some  200Z.  in  money  for  im- 
mediate necessities ;  of  distinct  prospects  he  had  none  at 
all.  He  had  made  a  reputation  by  his  articles  in  reviews 
as  a  man  of  marked  ability.  He  had  been  well  received 
on  his  visit  to  London  in  1832,  and  was  an  object  of  ad- 
miring interest  to  a  number  of  young  men  who  were 
themselves  afterwards  to  become  famous,  to  John  Mill,  to 
Charles  Buller,  to  Charles  Austin,  Sir  William  Moles- 
worth,  and  the  advanced  section  of  the  Philosophic  Radi- 
cals, and  he  doubtless  hoped  that  when  he  was  seen  and 
more  widely  known,  some  editorship,  secretaryship,  or  an- 
alogous employment  might  fall  in  his  way,  which  would 


8  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

enable  him  to  live.  Even  Brougham  and  Macaiilay  and 
the  orthodox  Whigs  of  the  '  Edinburgh  Keview,'  admitted 
his  talents,  thougli  they  disliked  the  use  which  he  made 
of  them,  and  would  have  taken  him  up  and  provided  for 
him  if  he  would  have  allowed  Jeffrey  to  put  him  into 
liarness.  But  harness  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  wear, 
even  liarness  as  light  as  was  required  by  booksellers  and 
editors.  Tliey  had  wondered  at  him  and  tried  him,  but 
since  the  appearance  of  'Sartor 'they  had  turned  their 
backs  upon  him  as  hopeless,  and  had  closed  in  his  face  the 
door  of  periodical  literature.  He  was  impracticable,  un- 
pei'suadable,  unmalleable,  as  independent  and  wilful  as  if 
he  were  an  eldest  son  and  the  heir  of  a  peerage.  He  had 
created  no  'public'  of  his  own;  the  public  which  existed 
could  not  understand  his  w^ritings  and  would  not  buy 
them,  nor  could  he  be  induced  so  much  as  to  attempt  to 
please  it ;  and  thus  it  was  that  in  Cheyne  Bow  he  was 
more  neglected  than  he  had  been  in  Scotland.  No  one 
seemed  to  want  his  services,  no  one  applied  to  him  for 
contributions.  At  the  Bullers'  house,  at  the  Austins',  and 
in  a  gradually  increasing  circle,  he  went  into  society  and 
was  stared  at  as  if  he  were  a  strange  wild  animal.  His 
conversational  powers  were  extraordinary.  His  unsparing 
veracity,  Ids  singular  insight,  struck  everyone  who  came 
in  contact  with  him,  but  were  more  startling  than  agree- 
able. He  was  unobtrusive,  but  when  asked  for  his  opinion 
he  gave  it  in  his  metaphoric  manner,  and  when  contra- 
dicted was  contemptuous  and  overbearing,  '  too  sarcastic 
for  so  young  a  man,'  too  sarcastic  by  far  for  the  vanity  of 
those  whom  he  mortified.  A  worse  fault  was  that  he  re- 
fused to  attach  himself  to  any  existing  sect,  either  religious 
or  political.  He  abhorred  cant  in  all  its  forms,  and  as  cant 
in  some  shape  gathers  about  ev^ery  organised  body  of  Eng- 
lish opinion,  he  made  many  enemies  and  few  friends ;  and 
those  few,  fearful  of  the  consequences,  were  shy  of  con- 


Uncertain  Prospects.  9 

fessing  tliemselves  his  disciples.  Month  after  month  went 
by,  and  no  opening  presented  itself  of  which  lie  was  able 
to  avail  himself.  Molesworth  founded  a  '  liadical  Re- 
view,' but  the  management  of  it  was  not  offered  to  Car- 
lyle,  though  he  hoped  it  might  be  offered.  His  money 
flowed  away,  and  with  the  end  of  it  would  end  also  the 
pi*ospect  of  making  a  livelihood  in  London. 

1  said  no  opening  of  which  he  could  avail  himself,  but 
one  opening  there  was  which  if  he  had  chosen  would  have 
led  him  on  to  fortune,  and  which  any  one  but  Carlyle 
would  have  grasped  at.  In  the  small  number  of  men  who 
had  studied  'Sartor'  seriously,  and  had  discovered  the 
golden  veins  in  that  rugged  quartz  rock,  was  John  Ster- 
ling, then  fresh  from  Cambridge  and  newly  ordained  a 
clergyman,  of  vehement  but  most  noble  nature,  who 
though  far  from  agreeing  with  Carlyle,  though  shrinking 
from  and  even  hating,  so  impetuous  was  he,  manj'  of  Car- 
lyle's  opinions,  yet  saw  also  that  he  was  a  man  like  none 
that  he  had  yet  fallen  in  with,  a  man  not  only  brilliantly 
gifted,  but  differing  from  the  common  run  of  people  in 
this,  that  he  would  not  lie,  that  he  would  not  equivocate, 
that  he  would  say  always  what  he  actually  thought,  care- 
less whether  he  pleased  or  offended.  Such  a  quality,  rare 
always,  and  especially  rare  in  those  who  are  poor  and  un- 
friended, could  not  but  recommend  the  possessor  of  it  to 
the  brave  and  generous  Sterling.  He  introduced  Carlyle 
to  his  father,  who  was  then  the  guiding  genius  of  the 
*  Times  ; '  and  the  great  editor  of  the  first  periodical  of  the 
world  offered  Carlyle  work  there,  of  course  on  the  implied 
conditions.  When  a  man  enlists  in  the  army,  his  soul  as 
well  as  his  body  belongs  to  his  commanding  officer.  lie  is 
to  be  no  judge  of  the  cause  for  which  he  has  to  fight. 
Ilis  enemies  are  chosen  for  him  and  not  by  himself.  His 
duty  is  to  obey  orders  and  to  ask  no  questions.  Carlyle, 
though  with  poverty  at  his  door,  and  entire  penury  visible 


10  .    Carlyle*s  Life  in  London. 

in  the  near  future,  turned  away  from  a  proposal  which 
might  have  tempted  men  who  had  less  excuse  for  yielding 
to  it.  He  was  already  the  sworn  soldier  of  another  chief. 
His  allegiance  from  first  to  last  was  to  truth^  truth  as  it 
presented  itself  to  his  own  intellect  and  his  own  conscience. 
He  could  not,  would  not,  advocate  what  he  did  not  be- 
lieve ;  he  would  not  march  in  the  same  regiment  with 
those  who  did  advocate  what  he  disbelieved  ;  nor  would 
he  consent  to  suppress  his  own  convictions  when  he  chose 
to  make  them  known.  By  this  resolution  not  the  '  Times  ' 
only,  but  the  whole  world  of  party  life  and  party  action, 
was  necessarily  closed  against  him.  Organisation  of  any 
kind  in  free  communities  is  only  possible  where  individuals 
will  forget  their  differences  in  general  agreement.  Car- 
lyle,  as  he  said  himself,  was  fated  to  be  an  Ishmaelite,  his 
hand  against  every  man  and  every  man's  hand  against 
him  ;  and  Ishmaelites,  if  they  are  to  prosper  at  all  in  such 
a  society  as  ours,  and  escape  being  trampled  under  the 
horses'  hoofs,  require  better  material  sources  behind  them 
than  a  fast-shrinking  capital  of  200Z. 

One  occupation,  and  one  only,  absorbed  Carlyle's  time 
and  thought  during  these  first  years  of  his  London  life, 
the  writing  his  history  of  the  French  Ke volution.  He 
had  studied  it  at  Craigenputtock.  He  had  written  as  a 
preliminary  flight,  and  as  if  to  try  his  wings,  the  exquisite 
sketch  of  the  episode  of  the  Diamond  ]N'ecklace,  which  lay 
in  his  desk  still  unpublished.  He  had  -written  round  the 
subject,  on  Yoltaire,  on  Diderot,  and  on  Cagliostro.  The 
wild  tornado  in  which  the  French  monarchy  perished  had 
fascinated  his  attention,  because  it  illustrated  to  him  in  all 
its  features  such  theory  as  he  had  been  able  to  form  of  the 
laws  under  which  this  world  is  ruled,  and  he  had  deter- 
mined to  throw  it  out  of  himself  if  afterwards  he  was  to 
abandon  literature  for  ever.  His  mind  had  been  formed 
in  his  father's  house  upon  the  Old  Testament  and  the 


'History  of  the  Fr, /id   Revolution^  11 

Presbyterian  creed,  and,  far  as  he  liad  wandered  and  deeply 
as  he  had  read,  the  original  lesson  had  remained  indelible. 

To  the  Scotch  people  and  to  the  Puritan  part  of  the 
English,  the  Jewish  history  contained  a  faithful  account 
of  the  dealings  of  God  with  man  in  all  countries  and  in  all 
ages.  As  long  as  men  kept  God's  commandments  it  was 
well  with  them ;  when  they  forgot  God's  commandments 
and  followed  after  wealth  and  enjoyment,  the  wrath  of 
God  fell  upon  them.  Commerce,  manufactures,  intellec- 
tual enlightenment,  political  liberty,  outward  pretences  of 
religiosity,  all  that  modern  nations  mean  when  they  speak 
of  wealth  and  progress  and  improvement,  were  but  Moloch 
or  Astarte  in  a  new  disguise,  and  now  as  then  it  was  im- 
possible to  serve  God  and  Baal.  In  some  form  or  other 
retribution  would  come,  wherever  the  hearts  of  men  were 
set  on  material  prospei-ity. 

To  this  simple  creed  Carlyle  adhered  as  the  central 
principle  of  all  his  thoughts.  The  outward  shell  of  it  had 
broken.  He  had  ceased  to  believe  in  miracles  and  super- 
natural interpositions.  But  to  him  the  natural  was  the 
supernatural,  and  the  tales  of  signs  and  wonders  had  risen 
out  of  the  efforts  of  men  to  realise  the  deepest  of  truths  to 
themselves.  The  Jewish  historj^  was  the  symbol  of  all 
history.  All  nations  in  all  ages  were  nnder  the  same  dis- 
pensation. We  did  not  come  into  the  world  with  rights 
which  we  were  entitled  to  claim,  but  with  duties  which 
we  were  ordered  to  do.  Rights  men  had  none,  save  to  be 
govei-ned  justly.  Duties  waited  for  them  everywhere. 
Their  business  was  to  find  what  those  duties  were  and 
faitlifully  fulfil  them.  So  and  only  so  the  commonweal 
could  prosper,  only  so  would  they  be  working  in  harmony 
with  nature,  only  so  would  nature  answer  them  with  peace 
and  happiness.  Of  forms  of  government,  'that  which 
was  best  administered  was  best.'  Any  form  would  answer 
where  tiiere  was  justice  between  man  and  man.     Consti- 


12  Ca7'lyle's  Life  in  London. 

tiitions,  Bills  of  Rights,  and  such  like  were  no  substitutes 
for  justice,  and  could  not  further  justice,  till  men  were 
themselves  just.  They  must  seehjirst  God's  kingdom, 
thej  must  be  loyally  obedient  to  the  law  which  was  writ- 
ten in  their  consciences ;  or  though  miracles  had  ceased, 
or  had  never  been,  there  were  forces  in  the  univei'se  teni- 
ble  as  the  thunders  of  Sinai  or  Assyrian  armies,  which 
would  bring  them  to  their  senses  or  else  destroy  them. 
The  French  Revolution  was  the  last  and  most  signal  ex- 
ample of  'God's  revenge.'  The  world  was  not  made  that 
the  rich  might  enjoy  themselves  while  the  poor  toiled  and 
suffered.  On  such  terms  society  itself  was  not  allowed  to 
exist.  The  iilm  of  habit  on  which  it  rested  would  burst 
through,  and  hunger  and  fury  would  rise  up  and  bring  to 
judgment  the  unhappy  ones  whose  business  it  had  been  to 
guide  and  govern,  and  had  not  guided  and  had  not  gov- 
erned. 

England  and  Scotland  were  not  yet  like  France,  yet 
doubtless  these  impressions  in  Carlyle  had  originated  in 
scenes  which  he  had  himself  witnessed.  The  years  which 
had  followed  the  great  war  had  been  a  time  of  severe 
suffering,  especially  in  the  North.  It  had  been  borne 
on  the  whole  with  silent  patience,  but  the  fact  remained 
that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  labourers  and  artisans  had 
been  out  of  work  and  their  families  starving  while  bread 
had  been  made  artificially  dear  by  the  corn  laws ;  and  the 
gentry  meanwhile  had  collected  their  rents  and  shot  their 
grouse  and  their  partridges,  with  a  deep  unconsciousness 
tliat  anything  else  was  demanded  of  them.  That  such  an 
arrangement  was  not  just — that  it  was  entirely  contrary, 
for  one  thing,  to  what  was  taught  in  the  religion  which 
everyone  professed  to  believe — had  early  become  evident 
to  Carlyle,  and  not  to  him  only,  but  to  tliQse  whose  opinions 
he  most  respected.  His  father,  though  too  wise  a  man  to 
meddle  in  active  politics,  would  sternly  say  that  the  exist- 


French  lievolation.  13 

iiig  state  of  things  could  not  last  and  onglit  not  to  last. 
His  mother,  pious  and  devout  thougli  she  was,  yet  was 
a  fiery  Radical  to  the  end  of  her  days.  Radicalism  lay  in 
the  blood  of  the  Scotch  Calvinists,  a  bitter  inheritance 
from  the  Covenanters.  Carlyle  felt  it  all  to  his  heart; 
but  he  had  thought  too  long  and  knew  too  much  to  believe 
in  the  dreams  of  the  Radicals  of  politics.  In  them  lay 
revolution,  feasts  of  reason,  and  a  reign  of  terror.  Goethe 
had  taught  him  the  meaning  and  the  worth  of  the  apos- 
tles of  freedom.  They  might  destroy,  but  they  could 
never  build  again.  For  the  sick  body  and  sick  soul  of  mod- 
ern Europe  there  was  but  one  remedy,  the  old  remedy  of  the 
Jewish  prophets,  repentance  and  moral  amendment.  All 
men  high  and  low,  wise  and  unwise,  must  call  back  into 
their  minds  the  meaning  of  the  word  *duty  ;'  must  put 
away  their  cant  and  hypocrisy,  their  selfishness  and  appe- 
tite for  pleasure,  and  speak  truth  and  do  justice.  Without 
this,  all  tinkering  of  the  constitution,  all  growth  of  wealth, 
though  it  rained  ingots,  would  avail  nothing. 

France  was  the  latest  instance  of  the  action  of  the  gen- 
eral law.  France  of  all  modern  nations  had  been  the  great- 
est sinner,  and  France  had  been  brought  to  open  judgment. 
She  had  been  offered  light  at  the  Reformation,  she  would 
not  have  it,  and  it  had  returned  upon  her  as  lightning. 
She  had  murdered  her  Colignys.  She  had  preferred  to 
live  for  pleasure  and  intellectual  enlightenment,  with  a 
sham  for  a  religion,  which  she  maintained  and  herself  dis- 
believed. The  palaces  and  chateaux  had  been  distin- 
guished by  the  splendour  of  dissipation.  The  poor  had 
asked  for  bread  and  had  been  scornfully  told  to  eat  grass. 
The  Annandale  masons  in  old  James  Carlyle's  time  had 
dined  on  grass  in  silence ;  the  French  peasantry  had  borne 
with  the  tyranny  of  their  princes  and  seigneurs,  patient  as 
long  as  patience  was  possible,  and  submitting  as  sheep  to  bo 
annually  sheared  for  their  masters'  pleasure  ;  but  the  duty 


14  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

of  subjects  and  the  doty  of  rulers  answer  one  to  the  other, 
and  the  question,  sooner  or  later  inevitable  in  such  cases, 
began  to  be  asked,  what  this  aristocrary,  these  splendid 
units  were,  for  whom  thousands  were  sacrificed,  these  no- 
bles who  reo^arded  the  earth  as  their  huntinoj  frround, 
these  priests  who  drew  such  lavish  wages  for  teaching 
what  they  knew  to  be  untrue — an  ominous  enquiry  which 
is  never  made  till  fact  has  answered  it  already.  False  no- 
bles, false  priests,  once  detected,  could  not  be  allow^ed  to 
remain.  Unfortunately  it  did  not  occur  to  the  French  na- 
tion that  wdien  the  false  nobles  and  the  false  priests  were 
shaken  off  they  would  need  true  nobles  and  true  priests. 
The  new  creed  rose,  wdiicli  has  since  become  so  popular, 
that  every  man  can  be  his  own  ruler  and  his  own  teachei-. 
The  notion  that  one  man  was  superior  to  another  and  had 
a  right  to  lead  or  govern  him  was  looked  upon  as  a  cun- 
ning fiction  that  had  been  submitted  to  for  a  time  by 
credulity.  All  men  were  brothers  of  one  family,  born 
with  the  same  inalienable  right  to  freedom.  The  right 
had  only  to  be  acknowledged  and  respected,  and  the  de- 
nial of  it  made  treason  to  humanity,  and  Astrsea  would 
then  return,  and  earth  would  be  again  a  Paradise.  This 
Avas  the  new  Evangel.  It  was  tried,  and  was  tried  with 
the  guillotine  as  its  minister,  but  no  millennium  arrived. 
The  first  article  was  false.  Men  were  not  equal,  but  infi- 
nitely unequal,  and  the  attempt  to  build  upon  an  untrue 
liypothesis  could  end  only  as  all  such  attempts  must  end. 
The  Revolution  did  not  mean  emancipation  from  author- 
ity, because  the  authority  of  the  wise  and  good  over  fools 
and  knaves  was  the  first  condition  of  natural  human  so- 
ciety. What  it  did  mean  w^as  the  bringing  great  offenders 
to  justice,  who  for  generation  after  generation  had  pros- 
pered in  iniquity.  Crown,  nobles,  prelates,  seigneurs, 
they  and  the  lies  wdiich  they  had  taught  and  fattened 
on  were  burnt   up   as   by  an  eruption   from  the  nether 


French  Revolxdlon.  15 

deep,  and  of  them  at  least  the  weary  world  was  made 
quit. 

It  was  tliiis  that  Carlyle  regarded  the  great  convulsion 
which  shook  Europe  at  the  close  of  the  last  century.  He 
believed  that  the  fate  of  France  would  be  the  fate  of  all 
nations  whose  hearts  were  set  on  material  things — who  for 
religion  were  content  with  decent  unrealities,  satisfying 
their  consciences  with  outward  professions — treating  God 
as  if  he  were  indeed,  in  Milton's  words,  '  a  buzzard  idol.' 
God  would  not  be  mocked.  The  poor  wretches  called 
mankind  lay  in  fact  under  a  tremendous  dispensation 
which  would  exact  an  account  of  them  for  their  misdoings 
to  the  smallest  fibre.  Every  folly,  every  false  word,  or 
unjust  deed  was  a  sin  against  the  universe,  of  which  the 
consequences  would  remain,  though  the  guilt  might  be 
purged  by  repentance.  The  thought  of  these  things  was 
a  weight  upon  his  heart,  and  he  could  not  rest  till  he  was 
delivered  of  it.  England  just  then  was  rushing  along  in 
the  enthusiasm  of  Reform,  and  the  warning  was  needed. 
His  own  future  was  a  blank.  He  had  no  notion  what  was 
to  become  of  him,  how  or  where  he  was  to  live,  on  what 
he  was  to  live.  His  inmiediate  duty  was  to  write  down 
his  convictions  on  this  the  greatest  of  all  human  problems, 
and  '  the  history  of  the  French  Revolution  '  was  the  shape 
in  which  these  convictions  crystallised. 

Let  the  reader  therefore  picture  Carlyle  to  himself,  as 
settled  down  to  this  work  within  a  few  months  after  his 
arrival  in  London.  He  was  now  39  years  old,  in  the  prime 
of  his  intellectual  strength.  His  condition,  his  feelings, 
his  circumstances,  and  the  outward  elements  of  his  life  are 
noted  down  in  the  letters  and  journals  from  which  I  shall 
now  make  extracts.  1  will  only  ask  the  reader,  as  I  must 
avoid  repetition,  to  glance  occasionally  into  the  contempo- 
rary correspondence  of  Mrs.  Carlyle,  which  will  add  par- 
ticulars that  are  omitted  in  his  own. 


16  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

January  1,  1835. — Twelve  o'clock  has  just  struck,  the  last  hour 
of  1834,  the  first  of  a  new  year.  Bells  ringing,  to  me  dolefully ;  a 
wet  wind  blustering,  my  wife  in  bed,  very  unhaj^pily  ill  of  a  foot 
which  a  puddle  of  a  maid  scalded  three  weeks  ago  ;  I,  after  a  day 
of  fruitless  toil,  reading  and  re-reading  about  that  Versailles  6th  of 
October  still.  It  is  long  since  I  have  written  anything  here.  The 
future  looks  too  black  to  me,  the  present  too  doleful,  unfriendly. 
I  am  too  sick  at  heart,  wearied,  wasted  in  body,  to  complain  even 
to  myself.  My  first  friend  Edward  Irving  is  dead — I  am  friendless 
here  or  as  good  as  that.  My  book  cannot  get  on,  though  I  stick  to 
it  like  a  burr.  Why  should  I  say  '  Peace,  peace,'  where  there  is  no 
peace  ?  May  God  grant  me  strength  to  do,  or  to  endure  as  right, 
what  is  appointed  me  in  this  now  commenced  division  of  time. 
Let  me  not  despair.  Nay,  I  do  not  in  general.  Enough  to-night, 
for  I  am  done.  Peace  be  to  my  mother,  and  all  my  loved  ones  that 
yet  live.     What  a  noisy  inanity  is  this  world  ! 

February  7. — The  first  book  of  the  '  French  Eevolution  '  is  fin- 
ished.^ Soul  and  body  both  very  sick.  Yet  I  have  a  kind  of  sacred 
defiance,  trotzend  das  Schicksal.  It  has  become  clear  to  me  that  I 
have  honestly  more  force  and  faculty  in  me  than  belongs  to  the  most 
I  see.  Also  it  was  always  clear  that  no  honestly  exerted  force  can 
be  utterly  lost.  Were  it  long  years  after  I  am  dead,  in  regions  far 
distant  from  this,  under  names  far  different  from  thine,  the  seed 
thou  sowest  will  spring.  The  great  difficulty  is  to  keep  oneself  in 
right  balance,  not  despondent,  not  exasperated,  defiant,  free  and 
clear.  Oh  for  faith !  Food  and  raiment  thou  hast  never  lacked 
yet  and  shall  not. 

Nevertheless  it  is  now  some  three-and-twenty  months  since  I 
have  earned  one  penny  by  the  craft  of  literature.  Be  this  recorded 
as  a  fact  and  document  for  the  literary  history  of  this  time.  I  have 
been  ready  to  work,  I  am  abler  than  ever  to  work,  know  no  fault 
I  have  committed ;  and  yet  so  it  stands.  To  ask  able  editors  to 
employ  you  mil  not  improve  but  worsen  matters.  You  are  like  a 
spinster  waiting  to  be  married.  I  have  some  serious  thoughts  of 
quitting  this  '  Periodical '  craft  one  good  time  for  all.  It  is  not 
synonymous  with  a  life  of  wisdom.  When  want  is  approaching,  one 
must  have  done  with  whims.  If  literature  will  refuse  me  both  bread 
and  a  stomach  to  digest  bread,  then  surely  the  case  is  growing  clear. 

Emerson  from  America  invites  me  in  the  most  enthusiastic  terms 

1  This  first  hook  was  the  original  first  volume.  The  arrangement  was  after- 
wards altered. 


Extracts  from  Jov/maZ,  17 

to  come  thither  and  lecture.  I  thank  him,  and  at  least  ask  ex- 
planatory light.  Thanks  to  thrift  and  my  good  Scotch  wife,  we 
can  hold  out  many  months  yet.  Voyons!  Met  Kadicals,  &c.,  at 
Mrs.  Buller's  a  week  ago.  Roebuck  Robespierre  was  there,  an 
acrid,  sandy,  barren  chamcter,  dissonant-speaking,  dogmatic,  triv- 
ial, \vith  a  singular  exasperation  ;  restlessness  as  of  diseased  vanity 
written  over  his  face  when  you  come  near  it.  I  do  not  think  him 
even  equal  to  Robespierre,  nor  is  it  likely  that  a  game  of  that  sort 
will  be  played  so  soon  again.  A  its  dent  tcird  wenig.  Sir  William 
Molesworth,  with  the  air  of  a  good  roystering  schoolboy,  pleased 
me  considerably  more.  A  man  of  irink  can  still  do  this,  forget  his 
rank  wholly,  and  be  the  sooner  esteemed  for  having  the  mind  equal 
to  doing  that. 

February  8,  1835. — ^Vernal  weather  of  all  kinds,  soft  and  hard, 
moist  western  and  clear  north-eastern,  to  me  most  memarative.  Old 
days  at  Maichill,  Hoddam  Hill,  and  earlier,  come  vividly  back  full 
of  sad  beauty  which,  while  passing,  they  had  not.  Why  is  the  past 
so  beautiful  ?  The  element  of /ear  is  withdrawn  from  it  for  one 
thing.  That  is  all  safe,  while  the  present  and  futui-e  are  all  so 
dangerous.  '  Moonlight  oi  memory ' — a  poetic  phrase  of  Richter's. 
Also  '  The  limbs  of  my  buried  ones  touched  cold  on  my  feet.' 
There  are  yet  few  days  in  which  I  do  not  meet  on  the  streets  some 
face  that  recalls  my  sister  Margaret's,  and  reminds  me  that  she  is 
not  suffering,  but  silent,  asleep,  in  the  Ecclefechan  kirkyard  ;  her 
/i/c,  her  self,  where  God  willed.  What  a  miracle  is  all  existence ! 
Last  night  at  Taylor's  by  myself ;  I,  against  my  will,  the  main 
talker  ;  learned  nothing,  enjoyed  little  ;  the  tribes  of  Westminster, 
all  on  the  late  streets,  making  their  Saturday  markets,  quite  a  new 
scene  to  me. 

February  26,  1835. — Went  last  night,  in  wet  bad  weather,  to 
Taylor's  to  meet  Southey,  who  received  me  kindly.  A  lean,  grey, 
whiteheaded  man  of  dusky  complexion,  unexpectedly  tall  when  he 
rises  and  still  leaner  then — the  shallowest  chin,  prominent  snubbed 
Roman  nose,  small  carelined  brow,  huge  bush  of  white  grey  hair 
on  high  crown  and  projecting  on  all  sides,  the  most  vehement  pair 
of  faint  hazel  eyes  I  have  ever  seen — a  well-read,  honest,  limited 
(strait-laced  even)  kindly-hearted,  most  irritable  man.  We  partecL 
kindly,  with  no  great  purjjose  on  either  side,  I  imagine,  to  meet 
again.  Southey  believes  in  the  Church  of  England.  This  is  nota- 
ble :  notable  and  honourable  that  he  has  made  such  belief  serve 
him  so  well. 

Vol.  III. -3 


18  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London. 

Letter  from  Alick  yesterday  with  a  postscript  from  my  mother. 
Jack  also  has  written  to  me.  Properly  at  this  time  there  is  nothing 
comfortable  to  me  in  my  existence  but  the  getting  on  with  that 
book  and  the  love  of  some  beloved  ones  mostly  far  from  me. 

Allein  und  ahgetrennt  von  aller  Freude  !  I  repeated  this  morning. 
Yet  thou  canst  write.  Write  then  and  complain  of  nothing — defy 
all  things.  The  book  announced  yesterday.  Would  that  I  were 
further  on  with  it !  I  ought  to  be  done  when  Jack  appoints  to  ar- 
rive, which  I  hope  he  will  soon.  He  is  one  of  my  chief  comforts. 
To  work  at  the  Fete  des  Piques. 

'Jack'  and  'Alick'  were  Carljde's  two  brothers,  John 
and  Alexander.  Alexander,  who  had  been  his  companion 
at  Craigenputtock,  was  struggling,  not  veiy  successfully, 
with  a  farm  near  Lockerbie.  John,  who  had  been  so  long 
an  object  of  expense  and  anxiety,  was  now,  tlianks  to  Jef- 
frey, in  easy  circumstances,  living  as  travelling  phj^sician  to 
Lady  Clare,  and  with  a  handsome  income  which  lie  was 
eager  to  share  with  his  brother,  as  his  brother  had  before 
shared  with  him  his  own  narrow  earnings  and  his  moor- 
land home.  Tlie  contest  of  generosity  was  a  very  pretty 
one.  Carlyle  could  never  accept  these  offers,  so  indepen- 
dent and  proud  he  was,  and  yet  he  reproached  himself 
sometimes  for  having  denied  John  so  great  a  pleasure. 
John  was  the  one  person  from  whom  he  could  have  ac- 
cepted an  obligation,  and  if  the  worst  came  he  had  resolved 
that  John  should  help  him.  But  the  occasion  had  not 
arrived  yet,  and  the  brothers  continued  to  correspond  with 
perfect  unreserve  and  the  old  effusiveness  of  detail. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  January  13,  1835. 
Your  letters,  my  dear  Jack,  are  always  a  great  comfort  to  me. 
With  your  brotherly  affection  and  true-heartedness,  you  are  one  of 
the  best  possessions  I  have.  Be  certain  I  will  share  if  need  be. 
It  were  poor  pride  to  resolve  otherwise.  With  you  alone  of  men 
such  a  thing  were  possible.  Nay,  it  is  to  you  only  I  can  so  much 
as  complain.     My  true  Annandalians  would  but  in  vain   afflict 


Literature  as  a  Profession.  19 

themselves  with  my  cares.  Other  heart  there  is  none  in  the  world 
that  would  even  honestly  do  that.  My  friends  here  admit  cheer- 
fully that  I  am  a  very  heroic  man,  that  must  understand  the  arf, 
unknown  to  them,  of  living  upon  nothivc/.  Mill,  I  think,  alone  of 
them,  would  make  any  great  effort  to  help  me.  As  to  heroism 
(bless  the  mark !),  I  think  often  of  the  old  rhyme  : 
There  was  a  piper  had  a  cow. 

And  he  liad  naught  to  give  her  ; 
He  took  his  pipes  and  played  a  spring. 

And  bade  the  cow  consider. 
The  cow  considered  wi'  herscl' 

That  piping  ne'er  would  fill  her  ; 
*  Gie  me  a  peck  o'  oaten  strae, 
And  sell  your  wind  for  siller.' 

In  a  word,  my  prospects  here  are  not  sensibly  brightening  ;  if  it 
be  not  in  this,  that  the  longer  I  live  among  this  i^eople,  the  deeper 
grows  my  feeling  (not  a  vain  one — a  sad  one)  of  natural  superiority 
over  them ;  of  being  able  (were  the  tools  in  my  hand)  to  do  a  hun- 
dred things  better  than  the  hundred  I  see  paid  for  doing  them.  In 
bright  days  I  say  it  is  impossible,  but  I  must  by-and-by  strike  into 
something.  In  dark  days  I  say,  '  and  suppose  nothing  ? '  My 
sentiment  is  a  kind  of  sacred  defiance  of  the  whole  matter. 

In  this  humour  I  write  my  book,  without  hope  of  it,  except  of 
being  do)ie  icith  it,  properly  beginning  to  as  good  as  feel  that  liter- 
ature has  gone  mad  in  this  country,  and  will  not  yield  food  to  any 
honest  cultivator  of  it.  For  example  :  if  this  book  ever  prospers, 
the  issue  will  be  applications  in  mad  superabundance  from  able 
editors  to. write  articles  for  them  (with  my  heart's  blood,  as  you 
sympathetically  say)  for  perhajjs  six  months — then  a  total  cessa- 
tion. Though  I  myself  were  able  to  write  articles  for  ever,  that  is 
notliing.  They  are  off  after  *  any  new  thing,'  and  you  stand  won- 
dering alone  on  the  beach.  As  to  *  fame '  again,  and  '  distin- 
guished '  men,  I  declare  to  thee.  Jack,  a  '  distinguished  man  '  (but 
above  all  things  a  distinguished  woman)  is  a  character  I  had  rather 
not  see  ;  and  '  fame  *  with  such  miserable  cobwebs  as  gain  it  most, 
and  are  burnt  up  by  it,  is  heartily  worth  iwthing  to  me. 

Nay,  sometimes,  with  pious  thought,  I  feel  it  a  mercy  that  I 
have  it  not.  Wlio  knows  whether  it  would  not  calcine  me  too — 
drive  me,  too,  mad  ?  Literature  does  not  invite  me.  Sometimes 
I  say  to  myself.  Surely,  friend.  Providence,  if  ever  it  did  warn, 
wai-ns  thee  to  have  done  with  literature,  which  will  never  yield 
thee  bread,  nor  stomach  to  digest  bread. 


20  Ca7'lyle's  Life  in  London. 

Mrs.  Carljle  adds  a  postscript : 

My  dear  Brother, — Your  affectionate  letter  is  the  greatest  com- 
fort we  have  had  this  new  year.  Otherwise  it  has  been  a  rather 
detestable  one.  I  said  to  Carlyle  some  weeks  ago,  '  I  am  resolved 
to  make  a  little  fun  this  Christmas,  for  our  Ohristmases  for  a  long 
while  back  have  been  so  doleful. '  '  I  shall  be  particularly  de- 
lighted,' said  he,  *  if  you  can  realise  any  fun.'  Well,  the  next 
morning,  at  breakfast,  my  maid  poured  a  quantity  of  boiling  water 
on  my  foot,  in  consequence  of  which,  and  I  think  also  of  improper 
applications,  I  have  been  confined  to  the  house  five  weeks,  the 
most  of  that  time  indebted  to  Carlyle  for  carrying  me  out  of  one 
room  into  another. 

Mrs. wrote  me  a  sentimental  effusion  on  the  death  of  Ed- 
ward Irving,  threatening  as  heretofore  to  come  and  see  me,  but  has 
not  been  yet,  nor  will  not.  The  only  pity  is  that  she  will  not  let 
the  matter  lie  quite  dormant. 

There  is  a  Mrs.  X.  whom  I  could  really  love,  if  it  were  safe  and 
she  was  willing ;  but  she  is  a  dangerous-looking  woman,  and  no 
useful  relation  can  spring  up  between  us.  In  short,  my  dear  doc- 
tor, I  am  hardly  better  off  for  society  than  at  Craig-o-putta  :  not 
so  well  off  as  when  you  were  there  walking  with  me  and  reading 
Ariosto. 

Hard  as  he  was  working,  Carljle  never  ceased  to  look 
about  for  any  kind  of  employment  outside  literature.  His 
circumstances  made  it  a  duty  for  liim  to  try,  vain,  as  every 
effort  proved  ;  and  one  scheme  after  another  rises  and 
fades  in  his  correspondence. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  February  16,  1835. 
The  honest  task,  which  I  thank  God  is  henceforth  not  so  ob- 
scure to  me,  I  will  study  to  do.  The  talent  which  God  has  given 
me  shall  not  rust  unused.  But  must  booksellers,  able  editors,  and 
the  glar  *  company  of  suchlike  individuals  be  a  new  set  of  middle- 
men between  me  and  my  task?  I  positively  do  not  care  that 
periodical  literature  shuts  her  fist  against  me  in  these  months. 

»  See  note,  p.  243. 


John  Mill,  21 

Let  her  keep  it  shnt  forever,  and  go  to  the  devil,  which  she  mostly. 
belongs  to.  The  matter  had  better  be  brought  to  a  crisis.  There 
is  perhaps  a  finger  of  Providence  in  it.  The  secret  of  the  whole 
thing  is  frothy  and  grounds  itself  in  bubbles  and  unreality.  Tlie 
inference  seems  to  be  *  Walk  out  of  this ;  *  if  even  into  the  knap- 
ping of  stones,  which  is  a  reality.  We  w^ll  do  nothing  rashly,  but 
have  our  eyes  open  and  study  to  do  all  things  fitly.  My  only  new 
scheme,  since  last  letter,  is  a  hypothesis — little  more  yet — about 
National  Education.  The  newspapers  had  an  advertisement  about 
a  Glasgow  'Educational  Association'  which  wants  a  man  that 
would  found  a  Normal  School,  first  going  over  England  and  into 
Germany  to  get  light  on  that  matter.  I  wrote  to  that  Glasgow 
Association  afar  off,  enquiring  who  they  were,  what  manner  of 
man  they  expected,  testifying  myself  very  friendly  to  their  project, 
and  so  forth — no  answer  as  yet.  It  is  likely  they  will  want,  as 
Jane  says,  *  a  Chalmers  and  Welsh '  kind  of  cliaracter,  in  which 
case  Va  ben^felice  notte.  If  otherwise,  and  they  (almost  by  mira- 
cle) had  the  heart,  I  am  the  man  for  them.  Perhai)s  my  name  is 
so  heterodox  in  that  circle,  I  shall  not  hear  at  all.  If  I  stir  in  any 
public  matter,  it  must  be  this  of  national  education.  Radicalism 
goes  on  as  fast  as  any  sane  mortal  could  "wash  it,  without  help  of 
mine.  Conservatism  I  cannot  attempt  to  consei-ve,  believing  it  to 
be  a  poi*tentou8  embodied  sham,  accursed  of  God,  and  doomed  to 
destraction,  as  all  lies  are  ;  but  woe  the  while  if  the  people  are  not 
taught ;  if  not  their  wisdom,  then  their  brutish  folly  will  incarnate 
itself  in  the  frightfullest  reality. 

My  grand  immediate  concern  is  to  get  the  *  Fi'ench  Revolution  * 
done.  I  cannot  tell  what  I  think  of  the  book.  It  is  ceiiainly  better 
some  ways  than  any  I  have  hitherto  written  ;  contains  no  falsehood, 
singularity,  or  triviality  that  I  can  help  ;  has  probably  no  chance 
of  being  liked  by  any  existing  class  of  British  men.  Nevertheless, 
I  toil  on,  searching  diligently,  doing  what  I  can,  in  old  Samuel's 
faith  that  'useful  diligence  wall  at  last  prevail.'  Mill  is  very 
friendly.  He  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  real  man  that  I  find  here 
— nay,  as  far  as  negativeness  goe^,  he  is  that  man,  but  unhappily 
not  very  satisfactoiy  much  farther.  It  is  next  to  an  impossibility 
that  a  London-bom  man  should  not  be  a  stunted  one.  Most  of 
them,  as  Hunt,  are  dwarfed  and  dislocated  into  the  merest  imbe- 
cilities. Mill  is  a  Presbyterian's  grandson,  or  he  were  that  too. 
Glory  to  John  Knox  !    Our  isle  never  saw  his  fellow. 


22  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

Letters  seldom  went  to  John  without  a  few  words  from 
Mrs.  Carlyle.     She  adds  : 

Dearest  of  created  doctors, — I  would  fain  cull  a  few  flowers  to 
make  thee  a  dainty  postscript,  but  the  soil,  alas  !  only  yields  dry 
thistles,  for  I  am  in  '  the  pipeclay  state,'  as  Carlyle  has  designated 
a  state  too  common  with  those  who  are  too  well  furnished  with 
bile.    I  went  the  other  day,  distracted  that  I  was,  to  a  great  modern 

fashionable  horrible  dinner.     It  was  at  Mrs. 's.     There  was 

huge  venison  to  be  eaten,  and  new  service  of  j^late  to  be  displayed, 

and  Mrs.  talked  about  the  Aarts  (Arts),  and  the  great  Sir  John 

R favoured  us  with  '  idears  '  on  the  Peel  administration  ;  and 

next  day  my  head  ached,  and  I  was  ready  to  imprecate  the  fire  of 
heaven  on  the  original  inventor  of  a  modern  '  dinner.'  We  are  go- 
ing to-morrow  to  Mrs.  X.  's,  whom  I  would  like  that  you  knew,  and 
could  tell  me  whether  to  fall  desperately  in  love  with  or  no. 

So  Carlyle's  first  winter  in  London  was  passing  away. 
His  prospects  were  blank,  and  the  society  in  which  he 
moved  gave  him  no  particular  pleasure,  but  it  was  good  of 
its  kind,  and  was  perhaps  more  agreeable  to  him  than  he 
knew.  His  money  would  hold  out  till  the  book  was  done 
at  the  rate  at  which  it  was  progressing.  The  first  volume 
was  finished.  On  the  whole  he  was  not  dissatisfied  with 
it.  It  was  the  best  that  he  could  do,  and  he  was,  for  him, 
in  moderately  fair  spirits.  But  the  strain  was  sharp  ;  his 
'  labour-pains  •  with  his  books  were  always  severe.  He  had 
first  to  see  that  the  material  was  pure,  with  no  dross  of 
lies  in  it,  and  then  to  fuse  it  all  into  white  heat  before  it 
would  run  into  the  mould,  and  he  was  in  no  condition  to 
bear  any  fresh  burden.  Alas  for  him,  he  had  a  stern  task- 
mistress.  Providence  or  destiny  (he  himself  always  be- 
lieved in  Providence,  without  reason  as  he  admitted,  or 
even  against  reason)  meant  to  try  him  to  the  utmost.  I^ot 
only  was  all  employment  closed  in  his  face,  save  what  he 
could  make  for  himself,  but  it  was  as  if  something  said 
'Even  this  too  you  shall  not  do  till  we  have  prov^ed  your 
mettle  to  the  last.'     A  catastrophe  was  to  overtake  him, 


The  BunU  Manuscript.  23 

wbicli  for  a  moment  fairly  broke  his  spirit,  so  cruel  it 
seemed — for  the  moment,  but  for  the  moment  only.  It 
served  in  fact  to  show  how  admirably,  though  in  little 
things  so  querulous  and  irritable,  he  could  behave  under 
real  misfortunes. 

John  Mill,  then  his  closest  and  most  valuable  friend,  was 
ardently  interested  in  the  growth  of  the  new  book.  He 
borrowed  the  manuscript  as  it  was  thrown  oif,  that  he  might 
make  notes  and  suggestions,  either  for  Carlyle's  use,  or  as 
material  for  an  early  review.  The  completed  first  volume 
was  in  his  hands  for  this  purpose,  when  one  evening,  the 
6th  of  March,  1835,  as  Carlyle  was  sitting  with  his  wife, 
'after  working  all  day  like  a  nigger'  at  the  Feast  of 
Pikes,  a  rap  was  heard  at  the  door,  a  hurried  step  came  up 
the  stairs,  and  Mill  entered  deadly  pale,  and  at  first  unable 
to  speak.  '  Why,  Mill,'  said  Carlyle,  ^  what  ails  ye,  man  ? 
What  is  it  ? '  Staggering,  and  supported  by  Carlyle's  arm. 
Mill  gasped  out  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  to  go  down  and  speak  to 
some  one  who  was  in  a  carriage  in  the  street.  Both 
Carlyle  and  she  thought  that  a  thing  which  they  had 
long  feared  must  have  actually  happened,  and  that  Mill 
had  come  to  announce  it,  and  to  take  leave  of  them.  So 
genuine  was  the  alarm  that  the  truth  when  it  came  out 
was  a  relief.  Carlyle  led  his  friend  to  a  seat  '  the  very 
picture  of  desperation.'  He  then  learned  in  broken  sen- 
tences that  his  manuscript,  'left  out  in  too  careless  a  man- 
ner after  it  had  been  read,'  was,  '  except  four  or  five  bits 
of  leaves,  irrevocably  annihilated.'  That  was  all,  nothing 
worse ;  but  it  was  ugly  news  enough,  and  the  uglier  the 
more  the  meaning  of  it  was  realised.  Carlyle  wrote  always 
in  a  highly  wrought  quasi-automatic  condition  both  of  mind 
and  nerves.  He  read  till  he  was  full  of  his  subject.  His 
notes,  when  they  were  done  with,  were  thrown  aside  and 
destroyed  ;  and  of  this  unfortunate  volume,  which  he  had 
produced  as  if  '  possessed '  while  he  was  about  it,  he  could 


24  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

remember  nothing.  ]S^ot  only  were  'the  fruits  of  ^sq 
months  of  steadfast,  occasionally  excessive,  and  always 
sickly  and  painful  toil '  gone  irretrievably,  but  the  spirit  in 
which  he  had  worked  seemed  to  have  fled  too,  not  to  be 
recalled  ;  worse  than  all,  his  work  had  been  measured  care- 
fully against  his  resources,  and  the  household  purse  might 
now  be  empty  before  the  loss  could  be  made  good.  The 
carriage  and  its  occupant  drove  off — and  it  would  have 
been  better  had  Mill  gone  too  after  he  had  told  his  tale, 
for  the  forlorn  pair  wished  to  be  alone  together  in  the  face 
of  such  a  calamity.  But  Carlyle,  whose  first  thought  was 
of  what  Mill  must  be  suffering,  made  light  of  it,  and  talked 
of  indifferent  things,  and  Mill  stayed  and  talked  too — 
stayed,  I  believe,  two  hours.  At  length  he  left  them. 
Mi-s.  Carlyle  told  me  that  the  first  words  her  husband  ut- 
tered as  the  door  closed  were :  '  Well,  Mill,  poor  fellow,  is 
terribly  cut  up  ;  we  must  endeavour  to  hide  from  him  how 
very  serious  this  business  is  to  us.' 

He  left  lis  (Carlyle  wi'ites  the  next  day  in  his  Journal)  in  a  re- 
lapsed state,  one  of  the  pitiablest.  My  dear  wife  has  been  very 
kind,  and  has  become  dearer  to  me.  The  night  has  been  full  of 
emotion,  occasionally  of  sharp  pain  (something  cutting  or  hard 
grasping  me  round  the  heart)  occasionally  of  sweet  consolation.  I 
dreamt  of  my  father  and  sister  Margaret  alive  ;  yet  all  defaced 
with  the  sleepy  stagnancy,  swollen  hebetude  of  the  grave,  and 
again  dying  as  in  some  strange  rude  country  :  a  horrid  dream,  the 
painfullest  too  when  you  wake  first.  But  on  the  whole  should  I 
not  thank  the  Unseen  ?  For  I  was  not  driven  out  of  composure, 
hardly  for  moments.  '  Walk  humbly  with  thy  God.'  How  I  longed 
for  some  psalm  or  prayer  that  I  could  have  uttered,  that  my  loved 
ones  could  have  joined  me  in  !  But  there  was  none.  Silence  had 
to  be  my  language.  This  morning  I  have  determined  so  far  that  I 
can  still  write  a  book  on  the  French  Revolution,  and  will  do  it. 
Nay,  our  money  will  still  suffice.  It  was  my  last  throw,  my  whole 
staked  in  the  monstrosity  of  this  life — for  too  monstrous,  incom- 
prehensible, it  has  been  to  me.  I  will  not  quit  the  game  while 
faculty  is  given  me  to  try  playing.    I  have  written  to  Fraser  to  buy 


Tlie  Burnt  Manusci'ipt.  25 

me  a  '  Biographie  Universelle '  (a  kind  of  increasing  the  stake)  and 
fresh  paper :  mean  to  huddle  up  the  F^le  des  Piques  and  look 
farther  what  can  be  attempted. 

Oh,  that  I  had  faith  !  Oh,  that  I  had  !  Then  were  there  noth- 
ing too  hard  or  heavy  for  me.  Cry  silently  to  thy  inmost  heart  to 
God  for  it.  Surely  He  will  give  it  thee.  At  all  events,  it  is  as  if 
my  invisible  schoolmaster  had  torn  my  copybook  when  I  showed 
it,  and  said,  *  No,  boy  !  Thou  must  wi-ite  it  better.'  What  can  I, 
sorrowing,  do  but  obey — obey  and  think  it  the  best?  To  work 
again  ;  and,  oh  !  may  God  be  with  me,  for  this  earth  is  not  friendly. 
On  in  His  name  !  I  was  the  nearest  being  happy  sometimes  these 
last  few  days  that  I  have  been  for  many  months.  My  health  is 
not  so  bad  as  it  once  was.  I  felt  myself  on  firmish  ground  as  to 
my  work,  and  could  forget  all  else.  I  will  tell  John,  my  mother, 
and  Annandale  Getreuen,  but  not  till  I  feel  under  way  again  and 
can  speak  peace  to  them  with  the  sorrow.  To  no  other,  I  think, 
will  I  tell  it,  or  more  than  allude  to  it. 

The  money  part  of  the  injury  Mill  was  able  to  repair. 
He  knew  Cai'lyle's  circumstances.  He  begged,  and  at 
last  passionately  entreated,  Carlyle  not  to  punish  him  by 
making  him  feel  that  he  had  occasioned  real  distress  to 
friends  whom  lie  so  much  honoured  ;  and  he  enclosed  a 
check  for  200^.,  the  smallest  sum  which  he  thought  that 
he  could  offer.  Carlyle  returned  it ;  but,  his  financial 
condition  requiring  that  he  should  lay  his  pride  aside,  he 
intimated  that  he  would  accept  half,  as  representing  the 
wages  of  five  months'  labour.  To  this  Mill  unwillingly 
consented.  He  sent  a  hundred  pounds,  and,  so  far  as 
money  went,  Carlyle  was  in  the  same  position  as  when  he 
began  to  write.  He  was  not  aware  till  he  tried  it  vv-liat 
difficulty  he  would  find  in  replacing  what  had  been  de- 
stroyed ;  and  he  was  able  to  write  to  his  brother  of  what 
had  happened,  before  he  did  try  again,  as  of  a  thing  which 
had  ceased  to  distress  him. 

To  John  Carli/le. 

Chelsea :  March  23. 
I  am  busy  with  vol.  ii.,  toiling  away  with  the  heai-t  of  a  free 
Roman.    Indeed,  I  know  not  how  it  was,  I  had  not  felt  so  clear 


26  Carlyl&s  Life  in  London. 

and  independent,  sure  of  myself  and  of  my  task,  for  many  long 
years.  There  never  in  my  life  had  come  upon  me  any  other  acci- 
dent of  much  moment ;  but  this  I  could  not  but  feel  to  be  a  sore 
one.  The  thing  was  lost,  and  perhaps  worse  ;  for  I  had  not  only 
forgotten  all  the  structure  of  it,  but  the  spirit  it  was  written  in  was 
past.  Only  the  general  impression  seemed  to  remain,  and  the 
recollection  that  I  was  on  the  whole  satisfied  with  that,  and  could 
now  hardly  hope  to  equal  it.  Mill,  whom  I  had  to  comfort  and 
speak  peace  to,  remained  injudiciously  enough  till  almost  mid- 
night ;  and  my  poor  dame  and  I  had  to  sit  talking  of  indifferent 
matters,  and  could  not  till  then  get  our  lament  fairly  uttered.  She 
was  very  good  to  me,  and  the  thing  did  not  beat  us.  That  night 
was  a  hard  one  ;  something  from  time  to  time  tying  me  ■  tight,  as 
it  were,  all  round  the  region  of  the  heart,  and  strange  dreams 
haunting  me.  However,  I  was  not  without  good  thoughts  too, 
that  came  Kke  healing  life  into  me  ;  and  I  got  it  somewhat  reason- 
ably crushed  down.  I  have  got  back  my  spirits,  and  hope  I  shall 
go  on  tolerably.  I  was  for  writing  to  you  next  day  after  it  hap- 
pened, but  Jane  suggested  it  would  only  grieve  you  till  I  could 
say  it  was  in  the  w^ay  towards  adjustment. 

The  image  of  the  schoolboy  whose  copy  had  been  torn 
lip  by  the  master  had  taken  hold  of  Carlyle,  for  he  re- 
peated it  in  his  letters.  It  was  humble  enough  and  touch- 
ing, yet  not  without  comfort,  for  it  implied  that  he  had  a 
master  who  was  interested  in  his  work  and  meant  it  to  be 
executed  properl}^  and  not  an  outcast  orphan  for  whom 
no  one  cared.  For  Mill's  sake  the  misadventure  was  not 
spoken  of  in  London.  Carlyle  had  been  idle  for  a  week 
or  two  till  he  could  muster  strength  to  set  to  work  again, 
and  had  gone  into  society  as  much  as  he  could  to  distract 
himself.  He  was  a  frequent  guest  at  Henry  Taylor's,  '  a 
good  man,'  he  said,  '  whose  laugh  reminds  me  of  poor  Ir- 
ving's.'  At  Taylor's  he  had  met  Southey.  Shortly  after 
the  accident  he  met  Wordsworth  at  tlie  same  house. 

I  did  not  expect  much  (he  said  in  a  letter),  but  got  mostly  what 
I  expected.  The  old  man  has  a  fine  shrewdness  and  naturalness 
in  his  expression  of  face,  a  long  Cumberland  figure  ;  one  finds  also 


Wordaioorth.  27 

a  kind  of  sincerity  in  his  speech.  But  for  prolixity,  thinness,  end- 
less dilution,  it  excels  all  the  other  speech  I  hatl  heard  from  mor- 
tals. A  genuine  man,  which  is  much,  but  also  essentially  a  small 
genuine  man.  Mothing  perhaps  is  sadder  (of  the  glad  kind)  than 
the  unbounded  laudation  of  such  a  man,  sad  proof  of  the  rarity  of 
such.  I  fancy,  however,  he  has  fallen  into  the  garrulity  of  age, 
and  is  not  what  he  was;  also  that  his  environment  and  rural 
prophethood  has  hurt  him  much.  He  seems  impatient  that  even 
Shakespeare  should  be  admired.  '  So  much  out  of  my  own  pocket.' 
The  shake  of  hand  he  gives  you  is  feckless,  egotistical.  I  rather 
fancy  he  loves  nothing  in  the  world  so  much  as  one  could  wish. 
When  I  compare  that  man  with  a  great  man,  alas !  he  is  like 
dwindling  into  a  contemptibility.  Jean  Paul,  for  example  (neither 
was  he  great),  could  have  worn  him  in  a  finger- ring.' 

And  again : 

Have  seen  Wordsworth,  an  old,  very  loquacious — indeed,  qmte 
prosing  man,  with  a  tint  of  naturalness,  of  sincere  insight,  never- 
theless. He  has  been  much  spoiled  ;  king  of  his  company,  unrec- 
ognised, and  then  adulated.  Worth  little  now.  A  genuine  kind 
of  man,  but  intrinsically  and  extrinsically  a  small  one,  let  them 
sing  or  say  what  they  will.  The  languid  way  in  which  he  gives 
you  a  handful  of  numb  unresponsive  fingers  is  very  significant.  It 
seems  also  rather  to  grieve  him  that  you  have  any  admiration  for 
anybody  but  him.  The  style  in  which  he,  clipping,  qualifv-ing, 
and  wearisomely  questioning  without  answer,  spoke  of  Bums  and 
Shakespeare,  finding  or  guessing  that  to  me  he  was  all  too  little 
in  comparison,  was  melancholy  to  hear.  No  man  that  I  ever  met 
has  given  me  less,  has  disappointed  me  less.  My  peace  be  with 
him,  and  a  happy  evening  to  his,  on  the  whole,  respectable  life. 


CHAPTER  II. 

A.D.  1855.    MT.  40. 

The  first  volume  to  be  replaced — Poverty  and  depression — John 
Sterling — Maurice  on  the  Articles — Sartor — Carlyle's  theology 
— Style — Invitation  to  America — Thoughts  of  abandoning  lit- 
erature— Keflections  in  Hyde  Park — Book  to  be  finished — 
London-drawing  rooms — First  volume  rewritten. 

To  resolve  to  rewrite  the  burnt  volume  was  easier  than  to 
do  it.  The  ^  JPete  des  Piques^  at  which  Carljle  had  been 
engaged  was  leisurely  finished.  He  then  turned  back  to 
the  death  of  Louis  XY.,  the  most  impressive  passage  in 
the  whole  book  as  he  eventually  finished  it,  but  he  found 
that  it  w^ould  not  prosper  with  him. 

'The  accident  had  grown  tolerable  to  me,'  he  says,  *  sometimes 
almost  looked  indifferent.  But  now  when  I  actually  come  to  try 
if  I  can  repair  it,  I  want  of  all  things  humility,  faith.  It  is  a  sore 
loss  I  have  had,  but  well  taken,  I  will  firmly  believe,  might  be- 
come a  gain.  The  wages  part  of  it  does  next  to  nothing  for  me. 
I  might  all  but  as  well  have  gone  without  wages.  However,  it 
was  only  gigmanity  ^  that  hinted  at  that,  to  which  I  needed  not 
give  any  ear.' 

Wages,  indeed,  could  only  be  useful  to  enable  the  work 
to  recover  itself,  but  it  seemed  as  if  the  mirror  had  been 
broken  and  the  image  irrevocably  gone. 

Miserable  !  (he  enters  in  his  notebook  on  the  10th  of  April).  I 
can  in  no  way  get  on  with  this  wretched  book  of  mine.  For  the 
last  fortnight,  moreover,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of  con- 
spiracy of  people  to  ask  us  out,  from  every  one  of  which  expedi- 

1  Vulgar  pride  ;  a  favourite  phrase  of  Carlyle's,  taken  from  Thurtell's  trial 


Poverty  a/nd  Confidtfice.  29 

tions,  were  it  only  to  *  tea  and  no  party,'  I  return  lamed  for  the  next 
day.  My  sight,  inward  as  well  as  outward,  is  all  as  if  bedimmed. 
I  grow  desperate,  but  that  profits  not.  Mrs.  Somerville's  rout 
the  other  night,  from  which  I  whisked  out  in  about  an  hour.  Mad 
as  Bedlam  is  that  whole  matter  ! 

There  was  no  hope  now  of  the  promised  summer  holi- 
day when  John  Carlyle  was  to  come  home  from  Italy,  and 
the  ^  French  Revolution '  was  to  have  been  finished,  and 
the  brothers  to  have  gone  to  Scotland  together  and  settled 
their  future  plans  in  family  council.  Holidays  were  not 
now  to  be  thought  of,  at  least  till  the  loss  was  made  good. 
Then,  as  always  when  in  real  trouble,  Carlyle  faced  his 
difficulties  like  a  man. 

To  John  Carlyle, 

Chelsea:  AprillO. 

I  assure  you  my  health  is  not  bad  nor  worsening.  I  am  yellow, 
indeed,  and  thin,  and  feel  that  a  rest  will  be  very  welcome  and 
beneficial.  Nevertheless,  I  repeat,  my  health,  though  changed,  is 
not  worse  than  it  was.  I  can  walk  further  than  I  used  to  do.  My 
spirits,  if  never  high,  are  in  general  quiet.  I  have  more  and  more 
a  kind  of  hope  I  shall  get  well  again  before  my  life  ends.  With 
health  and  peace  for  one  year,  it  seems  to  me  often  as  if  I  could 
write  a  better  book  than  any  there  has  been  in  this  country  for 
generations. 

If  it  be  God's  ordering,  I  sliall  get  well.  If  not,  I  hope  I  shall 
work  on  indomitably  as  I  am.  Beautiful  is  that  of  brave  old  Voss, 
and  often  comes  in  my  mind  :  '  As  the  earth,  now  in  azure  sun- 
shine seen  of  all  the  stars,  now  in  dark  tempests  hidden,  liol(h  on 
her  journey  round  the  sun.'  Good  also  is  this  that  you  give  me  ; 
l>iss  es  um  Dich  \oettern.  I  really  tiy  to  do  so,  and  succeed.  .  .  . 
Mill  and  I  settled  :  he  pleaded  for  200/.  or  some  intermediate  sum. 
But  I  found  we  must  stick  by  the  rigorous  calculation,  and  I  took 
100/.  Since  then  I  have  seen  almost  less  of  Mill  than  before,  nor 
am  I  sorry  at  it,  ////  this  work  be  done.  There  is  an  express  agree- 
ment we  are  not  to  mention  it  till  then.  I  believe  I  might  have 
plenty  of  work  in  his  *  London  Review  *  for  a  time,  but  pay  shall 
not  tempt  me  from  the  other  duty.  We  shall  be  provided  for  one 
way  or  the  other,  independently  of  the  devil.  Indeed,  it  often 
strikes  me  as  strange  what  an  unspeakable  composure  I  liave  got 


30  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

into  about  economics  and  money.  It  seems  to  me,  I  should  not 
mind  a  jot  if  hard  had  come  to  hard,  and  they  had  rouped  me  out 
of  house  and  hold,  and  the  very  shirt  off  my  back.  I  should  say, 
'Be  it  so;  our  course  lies  elsewhither  then.'  Forward,  my  boy  ! 
let  us  go  with  God,  towards  what  God  has  chosen  us  for.  We 
have  struggled  on  hitherto  without  taking  the  devil  into  partner- 
ship. The  time  that  remains  is  short ;  the  eternity  is  long.  My 
little  Heldin  is  ready  to  share  any  fortune  with  me.  We  will  fear 
nothing  but  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  destroyer. 

The  household  at  Chelsea  was  never  closer  drawn  to- 
gether than  in  these  times  of  trial.  Mrs.  Carlyle  adds 
her  usual  postscript. 

Dearest  John, — ^Your  letter  not  only  raised  our  spirits  at  the 
time,  but  has  kept  them  raised  ever  since.  Its  good  influence  is 
traceable  in  the  diminished  yellow  of  my  husband's  face,  and  tha 
accelerated  speed  of  his  writing.  Bless  you  for  it,  and  for  the 
kind  feelings  which  make  you  a  brother  well  worth  having — a 
man  well  worth  loving.  Surely  we  shall  not  quarrel  any  more 
after  having  ascertained  in  absence  how  well  we  lilie  one  another. 
Alas  !  surely  we  shall ;  for  one  of  us  at  least  is  only  '  a  plain  hu- 
man creature,'  liable  to  quarrel  and  do  everything  that  is  unwise. 
But  we  will  do  it  as  little  as  possible,  and  be  good  friends  all  the 
while  at  heart.  The  book  is  going  to  be  a  good  book  in  spite  of 
bad  fortune,  and  what  is  lost  is  by  no  means  to  be  looked  on  as 
wasted.  What  he  faithfully  did  in  it,  and  also  what  he  magnani- 
mously endured,  remains  for  him  and  us,  not  to  be  annihilated. 
How  we  shall  enjoy  our  visit  to  Scotland  when  the  volume  is  re- 
done !  Shall  we  resume  Ariosto  where  we  left  Mm  ?  And  the 
battledores  are  here,  and  more  suitable  ceilings.  Much  is  more 
suitable.     Heaven  send  you  safe ! 

Carlyle  was  brave ;  his  Heldin  cheering  him  with  woid 
and  look,  his  brother  strong  upon  his  own  feet  and  heartily 
affectionate.  But  he  needed  all  that  affection  could  do  for 
him.  The  '  accelerated  speed '  slackened  to  slow,  and  tlien 
to  no  motion  at  all.  He  sat  daily  at  his  desk,  but  his  im- 
agination would  not  work.  Early  in  May,  for  the  days 
passed  heavily,  and  he  lost  the  count  of  them,  he  notes 
'  that  at  no  period  of  his  life  had  he  ever  felt  more  discon- 


Blank  Prospects.  31 

solate,  beaten  down,  and  powerless  than  then  ;'  as  if  it 
were  *  simply  impossible  that  his  weariest  and  miserablest 
of  tasks  should  ever  be  accomplished.'  A  man  can  rewrite 
what  he  has  known ;  but  he  cannot  rewrite  what  he  has 
felt.  Emotion  forcibly  recalled  is  artificial,  and,  unless 
spontaneous,  is  hateful.  He  laboured  on  *  with  the  feeling 
of  a  man  swimming  in  a  rarer  and  rarer  element'  At 
length  there  was  no  element  at  all.  s' My  will,' he  said, 
'  is  not  conquered,  but  my  vacuum  of  element  to  swim  in 
seems  complete.'  He  locked  up  his  papers,  drove  the  sub- 
ject out  of  his  mind,  and  sat  for  a  fortnight  reading  novels, 
English,  French,  German — anything  that  c^me  to  hand. 
'  In  this  determination,'  he  thought,  ^  there  might  be  in- 
struction for  him.'  It  was  the  first  of  the  kind  that  he 
had  ever  deliberately  formed.  He  would  keep  up  his 
heart.  He  would  be  idle,  he  would  rest.  He  would  try, 
if  the  word  was  not  a  mockery,  to  enjoy  himself. 

In  this  suspended  condition  he  wrote  several  letters,  one 
particularly  to  his  mother,  to  relieve  her  anxieties  about 
him. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea :  May  13,  1835. 

You  will  learn  without  regret  that  I  am  idling  for  these  ten  days. 
My  poor  work,  the  dreariest  I  ever  undertook,  was  getting  more 
and  more  untoward  on  me.  I  began  to  feel  that  toil  and  effort  not 
only  did  not  perceptibly  advance  it,  but  was  even,  by  disheartening 
and  disgusting  me,  retarding  it.  A  man  must  not  only  be  able  to 
work,  but  to  give  over  working.  I  have  many  times  stood  dog- 
gedly to  work,  but  this  is  the  first  time  I  ever  deUberately  laid  it 
down  without  finishing  it.  It  has  given  me  very  great  trouble, 
this  poor  book  ;  and  Providence,  in  the  shape  of  human  misman- 
agement, sent  me  the  severest  check  of  all.  However,  I  still  trust 
to  get  it  written  sufficiently,  and  if  thou  even  cannot  write  it  (as  I 
have  said  to  myself  in  late  days),  why  then  bo  content  with  that 
too.  God's  creation  will  get  along  exactly  as  it  should  do  without 
the  writing  of  it. 

There  are  other  proposals  hovering  about  me,  but  not  worth 


32  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

speaking  of  yet.  The  '  literary  world '  here  is  a  thing  which  I 
have  had  no  other  course  left  me  but  to  defy  in  the  name  of  God  ; 
man's  imagination  can  fancy  few  tilings  madder ;  but  me  (if  God 
will)  it  shall  not  madden ;  I  will  take  a  knapping  hammer  first. 
Everything  is  confused  here  with  the  everlasting  jabber  of  j)olitics, 
in  which  I  struggle  altogether  to  hold  my  peace.  The  Radicals 
have  made  an  enormous  advance  by  the  little  Tory  interregnum ; 
it  is  not  unlikely  the  Tories  will  tiy  it  one  other  time.  They  would 
even  fight  if  they  had  anybody  to  fight  for  them.  Meanwhile 
these  poor  Melbourne  people  will  be  obliged  to  walk  on  at  a 
quicker  pace  than  formerly  (considerably  against  their  will,  I  be- 
lieve), with  the  Eadical  bayonets  pricking  them  behind.  And  so, 
whether  the  Tories  stay  out,  or  whether  they  try  to  come  in  again, 
it  will  be  all  for  the  advance  of  Radicalism,  which  means  revolt 
against  innumerable  things,  and  (so  I  construe  it)  dissolution  and 
confusion  at  no  great  distance,  and  a  darkness  which  no  man  can 
see  through.  Everybody,  Radical  and  other,  tells  me  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  poor  people — ^is — improving.  My  astonishment  was 
great  at  first,  but  I  now  look  for  nothing  else  than  this  '  improv- 
ing daily.'  '  Well,  gentlemen,'  I  answered  once,  *  the  poor,  I  think, 
will  get  up  some  day,  and  tell  you  how  improved  their  condition 
is ! '  It  seems  to  me  the  vainest  jangling,  this  of  the  Peels  and 
Russells,  that  ever  the  peaceful  air  was  beaten  into  dispeace  by. 
But  we  are  used  to  it  from  of  old.  Leave  it  alone.  Permit  it 
while  God  permits  it,  and  so  for  work  and  hope  elsewhither. 

Another  effect  of  Carlyle's  enforced  period  of  idleness 
was  that  lie  saw  more  of  liis  friends,  and  of  one  especially, 
whose  interest  in  himself  had  first  amused  and  then  at- 
tracted him.  John  Sterling,  young,  eager,  enthusiastic, 
had  been  caught  by  the  Kadical  epidemic  on  the  spiritual 
side.  Hating  lies  as  much  as  Carlyle  hated  them,  and 
plunging  like  a  high-bred  colt  under  the  conventional  har- 
ness of  a  clergyman,  he  believed,  nevertheless,  as  many 
others  then  believed,  that  the  Christian  religion  would 
again  become  the  instrument  of  a  great  spiritual  renova- 
tion. While  the  Tractarians  were  reviving  medisevalism 
at  Oxford,  Sterling,  Maurice,  Julius  Hare,  and  a  circle  of 
Cambridge  liberals  were  looking  to  Luther,  and  through 


John  SterUng.  33 

Liitlier  to  Neander  and  Schleiermacher,  to  bring  *  revela- 
tion' into  harmony  with  intellect,  and  restore  its  ascend- 
ency as  ft  guide  into  a  new  era.  Coleridge  was  the  high 
priest  of  this  new  prospect  for  humanity.  It  was  a  beau- 
tiful hope,  though  not  destined  to  be  realised.  Sterling, 
who  was  gifted  beyond  the  rest,  was  among  the  first  to  see 
how  much  a  movement  of  this  kind  must  mean,  if  it 
meant  anything  at  all.  He  had  an  instinctive  sympathy 
with  genius  and  earnestness  wherever  he  found  it.  In  the 
author  of  '  Sartor  Resartus  '  he  discovered  these  qualities, 
while  his  contemporaries  were  blind  to  them.  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned  that  he  sought  Carlyle's  acquaintance, 
and  procured  him  the  offer  of  employment  on  the  *  Times.' 
His  admiration  was  not  diminished  when  that  offer  was 
declined.  He  missed  no  opportunity  of  becoming  moi-e 
intimate  with  him,  and  he  hoped  that  he  might  himself 
be  the  instrument  of  bringing  Carlyle  to  a  clearer  faith. 
Carlyle,  once  better  instructed  in  the  great  Christian  veri- 
ties, might  become  a  second  and  a  greater  Knox. 

*  I  have  seen,'  Carlyle  writes  in  this  same  May,  '  a  good 
deal  of  this  young  clergyman  (singular  clergyman)  during 
these  two  weeks,  a  sanguine  light-loving  man,  of  whom, 
to  me,  nothing  but  good  seems  likely  to  come ;  to  himself 
unluckily  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil.'  Of  good  and  evil 
— for  Carlyle,  clearer-eyed  than  his  friend,  foresaw  the 
consequences.  Frederick  Maurice,  Sterling's  brother-in- 
law,  on  the  occasion  of  the  agitation  about  subscription  to 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  had  written  a  pamphlet  extremely 
characteristic  of  him,  to  show  that  subscription  was  not  a 
bondage,  as  foolish  people  called  it,  but  a  deliverance  from 
bondage;  that  the  Articles  properly  read  were  the  great 
charter  of  spiritual  liberty  and  reasonable  belief.  Ster- 
ling lent  the  pamphlet  to  Carlyle,  who  examined  it,  re- 
ppectfully  recognising  that  *an  earnest  man's  earnest  word 
was  worth  reading ;  but,'  he  said,  *  my  verdict  lay  in  thefte 
Vol.  III.— 3 


34  Cwrlyles  Life  in  London. 

lines  of  jingle,  which  1  virtuously  spared  Sterling  the  sight 
of:— 

Thirty -nine  EngHsh  Articles, 
Ye  wondrous  little  particles, 
Did  God  shape  His  universe  really  by  you  ? 
In  that  case  I  swear  it. 
And  solemnly  declare  it, 
This  logic  of  Maurice's  is  true.'  * 

Carlyle  afterwards  came  to  know  Maurice,  esteemed 
him,  and  personally  liked  him,  as  all  his  acquaintance  did. 
But  the  '  verdict '  was  unchanged.  As  a  thinker  he  found 
him  confused,  wearisome,  and  ineffectual ;  and  he  thought 
no  better  of  the  whole  business  in  which  he  was  engaged. 
An  amalgam  of  '  Christian  verities '  and  modern  critical 
philosophy  was,  and  could  be  nothing  else  but,  poisonous 
insincerity.  This  same  opinion  in  respectful  language  he 
had  to  convey  to  Sterling,  if  he  was  required  to  give  one. 
But  he  never  voluntarily  introduced  such  subjects,  and 
Sterling's  anxiety  to  improve  Carlyle  was  not  limited  to 
the  circle  of  theology.  Sterling  was  a  cultivated  and  clas- 
sical scholar ;  he  was  disturbed  by  Carljde's  style,  which 
offended  him  as  it  offended  the  world.  This  style,  which 
has  been  such  a  stone  of  stumbling,  originated,  he  has 
often  said  to  myself,  in  the  old  farmhouse  at  Annandale. 
The  humour  of  it  came  from  his  mother.  The  form  was 
his  father's  common  mode  of  speech,  and  had  been  adopted 
by  himself  for  its  brevity  and  emphasis.  He  was  aware 
of  its  singularity  and  feared  that  it  might  be  mistaken  for 
affectation,  but  it  was  a  natural  growth,  with  this  merit 
among  others,  that  it  is  the  clearest  of  styles.  jS'o  sentence 
leaves  the  reader  in  doubt  of  its  meaning.  '  Sterling's  ob- 
jections, however,  had  been  vehement.  Carlyle  admitted 
that  there  was  foundation  for  them,  but  defended  him- 
self. 

1  Shghtly  altered  when  printed  in  '  Past  and  Present.' 


Carlylc's  Style.  35 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chelsea:  June  4,  1835. 
The  objections  to  phraseology  and  style  have  good  grounds  to 
stand  on.  Many  of  them  are  considerations  to  which  I  myself  was 
not  blind,  which  there  were  unluckily  no  means  of  doing  more 
than  nodding  to  as  one  passed.  A  man  has  but  a  certain  strength  ; 
imperfections  cling  to  him,  which  if  he  wait  till  he  have  brushed 
off  entirely,  he  mil  spin  for  ever  on  his  axis,  advancing  nowhither. 
Know  thy  thought — believe  it — front  heaven  and  earth  with  it,  in 
whatsoever  words  nature  and  art  have  made  readiest  for  thee.  If 
one  has  thoughts  not  hitherto  uttered  in  English  books,  I  see 
nothing  for  it  but  you  must  use  words  not  found  there,  must  make 
words,  with  moderation  and  discretion  of  coui'se.  That  I  have  not 
always  done  it  so  proves  only  that  I  was  not  strong  enough,  an 
accusation  to  which  I,  for  one,  will  never  plead  not  guilty.  For 
the  rest,  pray  that  I  may  have  more  and  more  strength  !  Surely, 
too,  as  I  said,  all  these  coal  marks  of  yours  shall  be  duly  considered 
for  the  first  and  even  for  the  second  time,  and  help  me  on  my  way. 
But  filially  do  you  reckon  this  really  a  time  for  puiism  of  style,  or 
that  style  (mere  dictionaiy  style)  has  much  to  do  with  the  worth 
or  unworth  of  a  book  ?  I  do  not.  With  whole  ragged  battalions  of 
Scott's  novel  Scotch,  with  Irish,  German,  French  and  even  'news- 
paper Cockney  (where  literature  is  little  other  than  a  newspaper) 
storming  in  on  us,  and  the  whole  structure  of  our  Johnsonian 
English  breaking  up  from  its  foundations,  revolution  there  is  visible 
as  everywhere  else. 

*  The  style !  ah,  the  style ! '  Carlyle  notes  nevertheless 
in  liis  journal,  as  if  he  was  uneasy  about  it ;  for  in  tlie 
'  Frencli  Revolution '  the  peculiarities  of  it  were  more 
marked  than  even  in  '  Sartor  : ' — 

The  poor  people  seem  to  think  a  style  can  be  put  off  or  put  on, 
not  like  a  skin  but  like  a  coat.  Is  not  a  skin  verily  a  product  and 
close  kinsfellow  of  all  that  lies  under  it,  exact  type  of  the  nature 
of  the  beast,  not  to  be  plucked  off  without  flaying  and  death  ?  Tlie 
Public  is  an  old  woman.     Let  her  maunder  and  mumble. 

Sterling  was  not  satisfied,  and  again  persisted  in  his  re- 
monstrances. Das  wird  zu  lang^  Carlyle  said  ;  *  he  made 
the  letter  into  matches  ; '  not  loving  his  friend  the  less  for 


36  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

advice  wliicli  was  faithfully  given,  but  knowing  in  himself 
that  he  could  not  and  ought  not  to  attend  to  it.  The  style 
was  and  is  the  shin — an  essential  part  of  the  living  or- 
ganisation. 

But  besides  the  style,  Sterling  had  deeper  complaints 
to  make.  He  insisted  on  the  defects  of  Carlyle's  spiritual 
belief,  being  perhaps  led  on  into  tlie  subject  by  the  failure 
of  Maurice's  eloquence.  '  Sartor '  was  still  the  text.  It 
had  been  ridiculed  in  '  Fraser  '  when  it  first  appeared.  It 
had  been  republished  and  admired  in  America,  but  in 
England  so  far  it  had  met  with  almost  entire  neglect. 
Why  should  this  have  been  ?  It  was  obviously  a  remark- 
able book,  the  most  remarkable  perhaps  which  had  been 
published  for  many  years. 

You  ask  (said  Caiiyle)  why  the  leading  minds  of  the  country 
have  given  the  Clothes  j^hilosophy  no  response  ?  My  good  friend, 
not  one  of  them  has  had  the  happiness  of  seeing  it !  It  issued 
through  one  of  the  main  cloacas  (poor  Fraser)  of  periodical  liter- 
ature, where  no  'leading  mind,'  I  fancy,  looks  if  he  can  help  it. 
The  poor  book  cannot  be  destroyed  by  fire  or  other  violence  now, 
but  solely  by  the  general  law  of  destiny;  and  /have  nothing  more 
to  do  with  it  henceforth.  How  it  chanced  that  no  bookseller  would 
print  it,  in  an  epoch  when  Satan  Montgomery  runs,  or  seems  to 
run,  through  thirteen  editions,  and  the  morning  papers,  on  its 
issuing  through  the  cloaca,  sang  together  in  mere  discord  over  such 
a  creation — this  truly  is  a  question,  but  a  different  one.  Mean- 
while do  not  suppose  the  poor  book  has  not  been  responded  to  ; 
for  the  historical  fact  is,  I  could  show  very  curious  response  to  it 
here,  not  ungratifying,  and  fully  three  times  as  much  as  I  counted 
on,  or  as  the  wretched  farrago  itself  deserved. 

Sterling,  however,  had  found  another  reason  for  the 
comparative  failure. 

You  say  finally  (Carlyle  goes  on),  as  the  key  to  the  whole  mys- 
tery, that  Teufelsdrockh  does  not  believe  in  a  'personal  God.'  It 
is  frankly  said,  with  a  friendly  honesty  for  which  I  love  you.  A 
grave  charge,  nevertheless— an  awful  charge — to  which,  if  I  mis- 


CarlyWa  Creed.  37 

take  not,  the  Professor,  laving  his  hand  on  his  heart,  will  reply 
with  some  gesture  expressing  the  solemnest  denial.  In  gesture 
rather  than  in  speech,  for  the  Highest  cannot  bo  spoken  of  in  words. 
Personal !  Imi)ersonal !  One  !  Three !  \Miat  meaning  can  any- 
mortal  (after  all)  attach  to  them  in  reference  to  such  an  object  ? 
Wer  dnrf  Ihn  nbnnen  ?  I  dare  not  and  do  not.  That  you  dai-e 
and  do  (to  some  greater  extent)  is  a  matter  I  am  far  from  taking 
oflfence  at.  Nay,  with  all  sincerity,  I  can  rejoice  that  you  have  a 
creed  of  that  kind  which  gives  you  happy  thoughts,  nerves  you  for 
good  actions,  brings  you  into  readier  communion  with  many  good 
men.  My  true  wish  is  that  such  creed  may  long  hold  compactly 
together  in  you,  and  be  '  a  covert  from  the  heat,  a  shelter  from 
the  storm,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land.'  Well 
is  it  if  we  have  a  printed  litany  to  pray  from  ;  and  yet  not  ill  if  wo 
can  pray  even  in  silence;  for  silence  too  is  audible  tliei'e.  Finally 
assure  yourself  that  I  am  neither  Pagan  nor  Turk,  nor  circumcised 
Jew ;  but  an  unfortunate  Christian  individual  resident  at  Chelsea 
in  this  jesiT  of  grace,  neither  Pantheist,  nor  Pot-theist,  nor  any 
Theist  or  1st  whatsoever,  having  the  most  decided  contempt  for  all 
such  manner  of  system-builders  or  sect-founders — as  far  as  con- 
tempt may  be  compatible  with  so  mild  a  nature — feeling  well  be- 
forehand (taught  by  long  experience)  that  all  such  are  and  ever 
must  be  wrong.  By  God's  blessing  one  has  got  two  eyes  to  look 
with,  also  a  mind  capable  of  knowing,  of  believing.  That  is  all 
the  creed  I  will  at  this  time  insist  on.  And  now  may  I  beg  one 
thing  :  that  whenever  in  my  thoughts  or  your  own  you  fall  on  any 
dogma  that  tends  to  estrange  you  from  me,  pray  believe  that  to  be 
false,  false  as  Beelzebub,  till  you  get  clearer  evidence  ? 

This  is  an  explicit  statement,  and  no  one  who  knew 
Carlyle  or  has  read  his  books  can  doubt  the  sincerity  of  it. 
It  is  true  also  that  while  in  London  he  belonged  to  no 
recognised  body  of  believers,  regarding  all  such  as  '  system- 
mongers '  with  whom  he  could  have  nothing  to  do.  lie 
had  attended  tlie  Presbyterian  church  in  Annandale,  for 
it  was  the  communion  in  which  he  was  born.  He  had 
read  the  Bible  to  his  household  at  Craigenputtock.  But 
the  Kirk  in  London  was  not  the  Kirk  in  Scotland.  lie 
made  one  or  two  experiments  to  find  something  not  en- 
tirely unworthy. 


38  Carlyle-s  Life  in  London, 

I  tried  various  chapels  (he  said  to  me)  ;  I  found  in  each  some 
vulgar  illiterate  man  declaiming  about  matters  of  which  he  knew 
nothing.  I  tried  the  Church  of  England.  I  found  there  a  decent 
educated  gentleman  reading  out  of  a  book  words  very  beautiful 
which  had  expressed  once  the  sincere  thoughts  of  pious  admirable 
souls.  I  decidedly  preferred  the  Church  of  England  man,  but  I 
had  to  say  to  him  :  '  I  perceive,  sir,  that  at  the  bottom  you  know 
as  little  about  the  matter  as  the  other  fellow.' 

Thus,  with  the  Church  of  England,  too,  he  had  not  been 
able  to  connect  himself,  and  as  it  was  the  rule  of  his  life  not 
only  never  to  profess  what  he  did  not  believe,  but  never 
by  his  actions  to  seem  to  believe  it,  he  stayed  away  and 
went  to  no  place  of  worship  except  accidentally. 

Meanwhile  the  fortnight's  idleness  expired ;  he  went  to 
work  again  over  his  lost  volume,  but  became  '  so  sick  '  that 
he  still  made  little  progress.  Emerson  continued  to  press 
him  to  move  for  good  and  all  to  America,  where  he  would 
find  many  friends  and  a  congenial  audience  for  his  teach- 
ing ;  and  more  than  once  he  thought  of  leaving  the  un- 
lucky thing  unwritten  and  of  acting  on  Emerson's  advice. 
He  was  very  weary,  and  the  books  with  which  he  tried  to 
distract  himself  had  no  charm. 

Journal. 

May  26,  1835. — Went  on  Sunday  with  Wordsworth's  new  volume 
to  Kensington  Gardens  ;  got  through  most  of  it  there.  A  picture 
of  a  wren's  nest,  two  pictures  of  such  almost  all  that  abides  with 
me.  A  genuine  but  a  small  diluted  man.  No  other  thing  can  I 
think  of  him  ;  they  must  sing  and  they  must  say  whatsoever  seems 
good  to  them.  Coleridge's  '  Table  Talk, '  also  insignificant  for 
most  part,  a  helpless  Psyche  overspun  with  Church  of  England 
cobwebs  ;  a  weak,  diffusive,  weltering,  ineffectual  man.  The  Nunc 
Domine's  I  hear  chanted  about  these  two  persons  had  better  pro- 
voke no  reply  from  me.  What  is  false  in  them  passes.  What  is 
true  deserves  acceptance — speaks  at  least  for  a  sense  on  their  part. 

The  book — the  poor  book — can  make  no  progress  at  all.  I  sit 
down  to  it  every  day,  but  feel  broken  down  at  the  end  of  a  page  ; 
page  too  not  written,  only  scribbled.     Suppose  that  we  did  throw 


Coleridge.  39 

it  by.  It  is  not  by  paper  alone  that  a  man  lives.  My  bodily  health 
is  actually  very  bad.  To  get  a  little  rest  and  bloom  up  again  out 
of  this  wintry  obstruction,  impotence,  and  desolation,  were  the 
firat  attainment.  To-day  I  am  full  of  dyspepsia,  but  also  of  hope. 
The  world  is  yiot  a  bonehouse ;  it  is  a  living  home,  better  or  worse. 
Disastrous  twilight!  dim  eclipse!  That  is  the  state  I  sit  in  at 
present.  Singular,  too,  how  near  my  extreme  misery  is  to  peace, 
almost  to  some  transient  glimpses  of  happiness.  It  seems  to  me  I 
shall  either  before  long  recover  myself  into  life  (alas !  I  have  never 
yet  lived)  or  end  it,  which  alternative  is  not  undesiraJole  to  me.  I 
am  actually  learning  to  take  it  easier. 

Coleridge's  *  Table  Talk '  insignificant  yet  expressive  of  Cole- 
ridge :  a  great  possibility  that  has  not  realised  itself.  Never  did 
I  see  such  apparatus  got  ready  for  thinking,  and  so  little  thought. 
He  mounts  scaffolding,  pulleys,  and  tackle,  gathers  all  the  tools  in 
the  neighbourhood  with  labour,  with  noise,  demonstration,  pre- 
cept, abuse,  and  sets — three  bricks.  I  do  not  honour  the  man.  I 
pity  him  (with  the  opposite  of  contempt) ;  see  in  him  one  glorious 
up-struggling  ray  (as  it  were)  which  perished,  all  but  ineffectual, 
in  a  lax,  languid,  impotent  character.  This  is  my  theory  of  Cole- 
ridge— veiy  different  from  that  of  his  admirers  here.  Nothing,  I 
find,  confuses  me  more  than  the  admiration,  the  kind  of  man  ad- 
mired, I  see  cuiTent  here.  So  measurable  these  infinite  men  do 
seem,  so  imedifying  the  doxologies  chanted  to  them.  Yet  in  that 
also  there  is  something  which  I  really  do  try  to  profit  by.  Tlie 
man  that  lives  has  a  real  way  of  living,  built  on  thought  of  one  or 
the  other  sort.  He  is  a  fact.  Consider  him.  Di-aw  knowledge 
from  him. 

No  work  to-day,  as  of  late  days  or  weeks,  neither  does  my  con- 
science much  reproach  me.  This  is  rathei-  curious.  Significant  of 
what? 

It  was  6ig:nificant  of  a  growing  misgiving  on  Carlyle's 
part  tliat  lie  had  mistaken  his  profession,  and  that  as  a 
man  of  letters — as  a  tnie  and  honest  man  of  letters — lie 
conld  not  live.  Evei^thing  was  against  him.  No  one 
wanted  him ;  no  one  believed  his  report ;  and  even  Fate 
itself  was  now  warning  him  off  with  menacing  finger. 
Still  in  a  lamed  condition  he  writes  on  June  4  to  his 
mother : 


40  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

I  have  grave  doubts  about  many  things  connected  with  this  book 
of  mine  and  books  in  general,  for  all  is  in  the  uttermost  confusion 
in  that  line  of  business  here.  'But,  God  be  thanked,  I  have  no 
doubt  about  my  course  of  duty  in  the  world,  or  that,  if  I  am  driven 
back  at  one  door,  I  must  go  on  trying  at  another.  There  are  some 
two  or  even  three  outlooks  opening  on  me  unconnected  with  books. 
One  of  these  regards  the  business  of  national  education  which  Par- 
liament is  now  busy  upon,  in  which  I  mean  to  try  all  my  strength 
to  get  something  to  do,  for  my  conscience  greatly  approves  of  the 
work  as  useful.  Whether  I  shall  succeed  herein  I  cannot  with  the 
smallest  accuracy  guess  as  yet.  Another  outlook  invites  my  con- 
sideration from  America,  a  project  chalked  out  for  passing  a  winter 
over  the  water  and  lecturing  there.  Something  or  other  we  shall 
devise.  I  shall  probably  have  fixed  on  nothing  till  we  meet  and 
have  a  smoke  together,  and  get  the  thing  all  summered  and  wintered 
talking  together  freely  once  more. 

It  was  a  mere  chance  at  this  time  that  the  '  French 
Revolution '  and  literature  with  it  were  not  flung  aside  for 
good  and  all,  and  that  the  Carlyle  whom  tlie  world  knows 
had  never  been.  If  Charles  Buller,  or  Molesworth,  or  any- 
other  leading  Radical  who  had  seen  his  worth,  had  told 
the  Government  that  if  they  meant  to  begin  in  earnest  on 
the  education  of  the  people,  here  was  the  man  for  them, 
Carlyle  would  have  closed  at  once  with  the  offer.  The 
effort  of  writing,  always  great  (for  he  wrote,  as  his  brotlier 
said, '  with  his  heart's  blood '  in  a  state  of  fevered  tension), 
the  indifference  of  the  world  to  his  past  work,  his  uncer- 
tain future,  his  actual  poverty,  had  already  burdened  him 
beyond  his  strength.  He  always  doubted  whether  he  had 
any  special  talent  for  literature.  He  was  conscious  of 
possessing  considerable  powers,  but  he  would  have  pre- 
ferred at  all  times  to  have  found  a  use  for  them  in  action. 
And  everything  was  now  conspiring  to  drive  him  into  an- 
otlier  career.  If  nothing  could  be  found  for  him  at  home, 
America  was  opening  its  arms.  He  could  lecture  for  a 
season  in  E^ew  England,  save  sufficient  money,  and  then 
draw  away  into  the  wilderness,  to  build  a  new  Scotsbrig 


Thoughts  of  Ahandoniivg  Literature,  41 

in  the  western  forest.  So  the  possibility  presented  itself 
to  him  in  this  interval  of  enforced  helplessness,  lie  would 
go  away  and  struggle  with  the  stream  no  more.  And  yet 
at  the  bottom  of  his  mind,  as  he  told  me,  something  said 
to  him,  '  My  good  fellow,  you  are  not  fit  for  that  either.' 
Perhaps  he  felt  that  when  he  was  once  across  the  water, 
America  would  at  any  rate  be  a  better  mother  to  him  than 
England,  would  find  what  he  was  suited  for,  and  would 
not  let  his  faculties  be  wasted.  In  writing  to  his  mother 
lie  made  light  of  his  troubles,  but  his  spirit  was  nearly 
broken. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  June  15,  1835. 
My  poor  ill-starred  '  French  Revolution '  is  lying  as  a  mass  of 
unformed  rubbish,  fairly  laid  by  under  lock  and  key.  About  a 
fortnight  after  writing  to  you  last  this  was  the  deliberate  desperate 
resolution  I  came  to.  My  way  was  getting  daily  more  intolerable, 
more  inconsiderable,  comparable,  as  I  often  say,  to  a  man  swim- 
ming in  vacuo.  There  was  labour  nigh  insufferable,  but  no  joy,  no 
furtherance.  My  poor  nerves,  for  long  months  kept  at  the  stretch, 
felt  all  too  waste,  distracted.  I  flung  it  off  by  saying,  •  If  I  never 
write  it,  why  then  it  will  never  be  written.  Not  by  ink  alone  shall 
man  live  or  die.'  This  is  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  ever  did  such 
a  thing  ;  neither  do  I  doubt  much  but  that  it  was  rather  wise.  It 
goes  abreast  with  much  that  is  coming  to  a  crisis  with  me.  You 
would  feel  astonished  to  see  with  what  quietude  I  have  laid  down 
my  head  on  its  stone  pillow  in  these  circumstances,  and  said  to 
Poverty,  Dispiritment,  Exclusion,  Necessity,  and  the  Devil,  *  Go 
your  course,  friends;  behold,  I  lie  here  and  rest.'  In  fact,  with 
all  the  despair  that  is  round  about  me,  there  is  not  in  myself,  I  do 
think,  the  least  desperation.  I  feel  rather  as  if,  quite  possibly,  I 
might  be  about  bursting  the  accursed  enchantment  that  has  hold 
me,  all  my  weary  days,  in  nameless  thraldom,  and  actually  begin- 
ning to  be  alive.  There  has  been  much  given  me  to  suffer,  to 
learn  from,  this  last  year.  That  things  should  come  to  a  crisis  is 
what  I  wish.  Also  how  tnie  it  is,  Deiix  arfflictions  mises  e)isemble 
peuvent  devenir  une  consolation.  On  the  whole  I  sliall  never  regret 
coming  to  London,  where  if  boundless  confusion,  some  elements 
of  order  have  also  met  me  j  above  all  things,  the  real  faces  and 


42  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

lives  of  my  fellow  mortals,  stupid  or  wise,  so  unspeakably  instruc- 
tive to  me.  ^  Fancy  me  for  the  present  reading  all  manner  of  silly 
books,  and  for  these  late  days  one  pregnant  book,  Dante's  '  In- 
ferno ; '  running  about  amongst  people  and  things,  looking  even  of 
a  bright  sunset  on  Hyde  Park  and  its  glory  ;  I  sitting  on  the  stump 
of  an  oak,  it  rolling  and  curvetting  past  me  on  the  Serpentine 
drive,  really  very  superb  and  given  gratis.  Unspeakable  thoughts 
rise  out  of  it.  This,  then,  is  the  last  efflorescence  of  the  Tree  of 
Being.  Hengst  and  Horsa  were  bearded,  but  ye  gentlemen  have 
got  razors  and  breeches;  and  oh,  my  fair  ones,  how  are  ye  changed 
since  Boadicea  wore  her  own  hair  unfrizzled  hanging  down  as  low 
as  her  hips  !  The  Queen  Anne  hats  and  heads  have  dissolved  into 
air,  and  behold  you  here  and  me,  prismatic  light-streaks  on  the 
bosom  of  the  sacred  night.     And  so  it  goes  on. 

As  writing  seemed  impossible,  Carljle  had  determined 
to  go  to  Scotland  after  all.  Ladj  Clare  had  meant  to  be 
in  England  soon  after  midsummer,  bringing  John  Car- 
lyle  with  her.  John  was  now  the  great  man  of  the  fam- 
ily, the  man  of  income,  the  travelled  doctor  from  Italy, 
the  companion  of  a  peeress.  His  arrival  was  looked  for- 
ward to  at  Scotsbrig  with  natural  eagerness.  Carlyle  and 
he  were  to  go  down  together  and  consult  with  their  mother 
about  future  plans.  Mrs.  Carlyle  would  go  with  them  to 
pay  a  visit  to  her  mother.  The  journey  might  be  an  ex- 
pense, but  John  was  rich,  and  the  fares  to  Edinburgh  by 
steamer  were  not  considerable.  In  the  gloom  that  hung 
over  Chelsea  this  prospect  had  been  the  one  streak  of  sun- 
shine— and  unhappily  it  was  all  clouded  over.  Lady  Clare 
could  not  come  home  after  all,  and  John  was  obliged  to 

iln  the  journal  under  the  same  date  Carlyle  says  :  '  Very  often  of  late  has 
this  stanza  of  Goethe's  come  into  my  mind.  I  translated  it  in  the  Wander- 
jahre^  but  never  understood  it  before  : — 

"  There  in  others'  looks  discover 

What  thy  own  life's  course  has  been, 
And  thy  deeds  of  years  past  over 
In  thy  fellow-men  be  seen." 
It  is  verily  so.     I  am  painfully  learning  much  here,  if  not  by  the  wisdom  of 
the  people,  yet  by  their  existence,  nay  by  their  stupidity.     Learn— live  and 
learn.' 


Book  to  he  Finisfied.  43 

remain  with  her,  though  with  a  promise  of  leave  of  ab- 
sence in  the  autumn.  At  Radical  Scotsbrig  there  was  m- 
dignation  enough  at  a  fine  lady's  caprices  destroying  other 
people's  pleasures.  Carlyle  more  gently  *  could  pity  the 
heart  that  suffered,  whether  it  beat  under  silk  or  nnder 
sackcloth  ; '  for  Lady  Clare's  life  was  not  a  happy  one. 
He  collected  his  energy.  To  soften  his  wife's  disappoint- 
ment, he  invited  Mrs.  AVelsh  to  come  immediately  on  a 
long  visit  to  Cheyne  Row.  Like  his  father  he  resolved  to 
*gar  himself  '  finish  the  burnt  volume  in  spite  of  every- 
thing, and  to  think  no  more  of  Scotland  till  it  was  done. 
The  sudden  change  gave  him  back  his  strength. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  June  30,  1835. 
As  for  OTU'  own  share  there  is  need  of  a  new  resolution,  and  we 
have  gone  far  to  form  ours.  Jane  thinks  that  if  we  are  to  wait  till 
September  it  will  be  needless  for  her  to  come  to  Scotland  this 
year.  She  had,  in  the  main,  only  her  mother  to  see  there,  and  it 
seems  the  shorter  way  to  send  for  her  mother  up  hither  without 
delay.  Jack  and  I,  if  he  is  coming,  can  go  to  Scotland  by  our- 
selves. At  lowest,  when  Mi*s.  Welsh  was  returning,  I  would  ac- 
company her,  and  you  would  see  me  at  least.  I  at  any  rate  am  to 
fall  instantly  to  icork  agaiji,  having  now  filled  up  my  full  measure 
of  idleness.  That  wretched  burnt  MS.  must,  if  the  gae  of  life  re- 
mains in  me,  be  replaced.  *  It  shall  be  done,  sir,'  as  the  Cockneys 
say.  After  that  the  whole  world  is  before  me,  where  to  choose 
from.  I  cannot  say  I  am  in  the  least  degree  *  tining  heart '  in 
these  per^jlexities.  Nay,  I  think  in  general  I  have  not  been  in  so 
good  heart  these  ten  years.  London  and  its  quackeries  and  follies 
and  confusions  does  not  daunt  me.  I  look  on  all  matters  that  per- 
tain to  it  with  a  kind  of  silent  defiance,  confident  to  the  last  that 
the  work  my  Maker  meant  me  to  do  I  shall  verily  do,  let  the 
De%'il  and  his  servants  obstnict  as  they  will.  The  literary  craft, 
as  I  have  often  explained  to  you,  seems  gone  for  this  generation. 
I  do  not  see  how  a  man  that  will  not  take  the  Devil  into  partner- 
ship— one  of  the  worst  partnerships,  if  I  have  any  judgment — is  to 
exist  by  it  henceforth.  Well,  then,  it  is  gone.  Let  it  go  with  a 
blessing.     We  will  seek  for  another  occupation.     We  will  seek  and 


44  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

find.  It  is  on  one's  self  and  what  conies  of  one's  own  doings  that 
all  depends.  However,  I  must  have  this  book  off  my  hands. 
Should  I  even  burn  it,  I  will  be  done  with  it. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea:  July  3. 
I  have  decided  to  falling  instantly  to  work  again  with  vigour. 
If  I  can  write  that  '  Eevolution '  volume,  the  saddest  affair  I  ever 
had  to  manage,  I  will  do  it.  The  first  wish  of  my  heart  is  that  it 
were  done  in  almost  any  way ;  weary,  most  weary  am  I  of  it.  I 
will  either  write  it,  or  burn  it,  or  ...  .  One  thing  that  will 
gratify  you  is  the  perceptible  increase  of  health  this  otherwise  so 
scandalous /awZe?i2;en.  (idling)  has  given  me.  I  am  also  farther  than 
ever  from  'tining  heart.'  Nothing  definite  yet  turns  up  for  my 
future  life.  Yet  several  things  turn  more  decisively  down,  which 
is  also  something ;  amongst  others  literature.  I  feel  well  that  it 
is  a  thing  I  shall  never  live  by  here ;  moreover,  that  there  are 

many  things  besides  it  in  God's  universe As  a  last  re- 

sourcfe,  in  the  dim  background  rises  America,  rise  the  kindest  in- 
vitations there.  I  really  could  go  and  open  my  mouth  in  Boston 
to  that  strange  audience  with  considerable  audacity ;  perhaps  it 
were  the  making  of  me  to  learn  to  speak.  I  really  in  some  moods 
feel  no  kind  of  tendency  to  whimper  or  even  to  gloom.  God's 
world,  ruled  over  by  the  Prince  of  the  Power  of  the  Air,  is  round 
me,  and  I  have  taken  my  side  in  it,  and  know  what  I  mean  as  well 
as  the  Prince  knows.  Fancy  me  working  and  not  unhappy  till  I 
hear  from  you.  I  find  I  could  get  employment  and  pay,  writing 
in  the  '  Times,'  but  I  will  have  no  trade  with  that.  Old  Sterling 
amuses  me  a  little ;  has  eyes ;  has  had  them  on  men  and  men's 
ways  many  years  now,  a  trenchant,  clean- washed,  military  old  gen- 
tleman. 

Tilings  after  this  began  to  brigliten.  Mrs.  Welsh  came 
up  to  cheer  her  daughter,  whose  heart  had  almost  failed 
like  her  husband's,  for  she  liad  no  fancy  for  an  American 
forest.  Carlvle  went  vigorously  to  work,  and  at  last  suc- 
cessfully. In  ten  days  he  had  made  substantial  progress, 
tliough  with  'immense  difficulty'  still.  'It  was  and  re- 
mained the  most  ungrateful  and  intolerable  task  he  had 
ever  undertaken.'     Bat  he  felt  that  he  was  getting  on 


Objectioii8  to  Style.  45 

with  it,  and  recovered  his  peace  of  mind.  He  even  be- 
gan to  be  interested  again  in  the  subject  itself,  which  had 
become  for  the  time  entirely  distasteful  to  him,  and  to 
regret  that  he  could  not  satisfy  himself  better  in  his  treat- 
ment of  it.  Notwithstanding  his  defence  of  his  style  to 
Sterling,  he  wished  the  skin  were  less  '  rhinoceros-like.' 

JoumaL 

July  lb,  1835. — Tlie  book,  I  do  lionestly  apprehend,  will  never 
be  worth  almost  anything.  "What  a  deliverance,  however,  merely 
to  have  done  with  it !  This  is  almost  my  only  motive  now.  I  de- 
test the  task,  but  am  hounded  into  it  by  feelings  still  more  detest- 
able. I  am  all  wrong  about  it  in  my  way  of  setting  it  forth,  and 
cannot  mend  myself.  I  think  often  I  have  mistaken  my  trade. 
That  of  style  gives  me  great  uneasiness.  So  many  persons,  almost 
everybody  that  speaks  to  me,  objects  to  my  style  as  *  too  full  of 
meaning.  *  Had  it  no  other  fault !  I  seldom  read  in  any  dud  of  a 
book,  novel,  or  the  like,  where  the  writing  seems  to  flow  along 
like  talk  (certainly  not  '  too  full ')  without  a  certain  pain,  a  certain 
envy.  Ten  pages  of  that  were  easier  than  a  sentence  or  paragraph 
of  mine  ;  and  yet  such  is  the  result.  What  to  do  ?  To  write  on 
the  best  one  can,  get  the  free'st,  sincerest  possible  utterance,  taking 
in  all  guidances  towards  that,  putting  aside  with  best  address  all 
misguidances.  Truly  I  feel  like  one  that  was  bursting  with  mean- 
ing, that  had  no  utterance  for  it,  that  would  and  must  get  one — a 
most  indescribably  uneasy  feeling,  were  it  not  for  the  hope. 

Gradually  the  story  which  he  was  engaged  in  telling 
got  possession  of  him  again.  The  terrible  scenes  of  the 
Revolution  seized  his  imagination,  haunting  him  as  he 
walked  about  the  streets.  London  and  its  giddy  whirl  of 
life,  that  too  might  become  as  Paris  had  been.  Ah !  and 
what  was  it  all  but  a  pageant  passing  from  darkness  into 
darkness  ? 

The  world  (he  said  in  these  weeks)  looks  often  quite  spectral  to 
me ;  sometimes,  as  in  Regent  Street  the  other  night  (my  nerves 
being  all  shattered),  quite  hideous,  discordant,  almost  infernal.  I 
had  beeh  at  Mrs.  Austin's,  heard  Sydney  Smith  for  the  first  time 
gufiawing,  other  persons  prating,  jargoning.     To  me  through  these 


46  Cariyle^s  Life  in  London. 

thin  cobwebs  Death  and  Eternity  sate  glaring.  Coming  home- 
wards along  Regent  Street,  through  street- walkers,  through — Aoh 
Gott!  unspeakable  pity  swallowed  up  unspeakable  abhorrence  of 
it  and  of  myself.  The  moon  and  the  serene  nightly  sky  in  Sloane 
Street  consoled  me  a  little.  Smith,  a  mass  of  fat  and  muscularity, 
with  massive  Eoman  nose,  piercing  hazel  eyes,  huge  cheeks, 
shrewdness  and  fun,  not  humor  or  even  wit,  seemingly  without 
soul  altogether.  Mrs.  Marcet  ill-looking,  honest,  rigorous,  com- 
monplace. The  rest  babble,  babble.  Woe's  me  that  I  in  Meshech 
ara !     To  work. 

Drawing-room  society  to  a  man  engaged  in  painting  the 
flowers  of  hell  which  had  grown  elsewhere  on  a  stock  of 
the  same  genus  was  not  likely  to  be  agreeable.  Sydney 
Smith  especially  he  never  heartily  liked,  tliinking  that  he 
wanted  seriousness.  '  Gad,  sir,  he  believes  it  all,'  Sydney 
had  been  heard  to  say  of  Lord  John  Russell  when  speak- 
ing of  some  grave  subject.  Amidst  such  '  spectral'  feel- 
ings the  writing  of  the  '  French  Revolution  '  went  on.  By 
August  10  Carlyle  was  within  sight  of  the  end  of  the  un- 
fortunate volume  which  had  cost  him  so  dear,  and  could 
form  a  notion  of  what  he  had  done.  His  wife,  an  excel- 
cent  judge,  considered  the  second  version  better  than  the 
first.  Carlyle  himself  thought  it  worse,  but  not  much 
worse ;  at  any  rate  he  was  relieved  from  the  load,  and 
could  look  forward  to  finishing  the  rest.  Sometimes  he 
thought  the  book  would  produce  an  effect ;  but  he  had 
hoped  the  same  from  '  Sartor,'  and  he  did  not  choose  to 
be  sanguine  a  second  time.  On  September  23  he  was 
able  to  tell  liis  brother  that  the  last  line  of  the  volume  was 
actually  written,  that  he  was  entirely  exhausted  and  was 
going  to  Annandale  to  recover  himself. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  September  23,  1835. 
By  the  real  blessing  and  favour  of  Heaven  I  got  done  with  that 
unutterable  MS.  on  Monday  last,  and  have  wrapped  it  up  there  to 


Burnt  Volume  BewriUe7u  47 

lie  till  the  other  two  volumes  be  complete.  The  work  does  not 
seem  to  myself  to  be  veiy  much  worse  than  it  was.  It  is  worse  in 
the  style  of  expression,  but  better  compacted  in  the  thought.  On 
the  whole  I  feel  like  a  man  who  had  nearly  killed  himself  in  ac- 
complishing zero.  What  a  deliverance !  I  shall  never  without  a 
kind  of  shudder  look  back  at  the  detestable  state  of  enchantment 
I  have  worked  in  for  these  six  months  and  am  now  blessedly  de- 
livered from.  The  rest  of  the  book  shall  go  on  quite  like  child's 
play  in  compai*ison.  Also  I  do  think  it  will  be  a  queer  book,  one 
of  the  queerest  published  in  this  centuiy,  and  can,  though  it  can- 
not be  popular,  be  better  than  that.  My  Teufelsdrockh  humour, 
no  voluntary  one,  of  looking  through  the  clothes,  finds  singu- 
lar scope  in  this  subject.  Remarkable  also  is  the  '  still  death- 
defiance  '  I  have  settled  into,  equivalent  to  the  most  absolute  sov- 
ereignty conceivable  by  the  mind.  I  say  '  still  death-defiance,' 
yet  it  is  not  unblended  with  a  great  fire  of  hope  unquenchable, 
which  glows  up  silent,  steady,  brighter  and  brighter.  My  one 
thought  is  to  be  done  with  this  book.  Innumerable  things  point 
all  that  way.  My  whole  destiny  seems  as  if  it  lost  itself  in  chaos 
there  (for  my  money  also  gets  done  then) — in  chaos  which  I  am  to 
recreate  or  perish  miserably — an  arrangement  which  I  really  re- 
gard as  blessed  compai*atively.  So  I  sit  here  and  write,  composed 
in  mood,  responsible  to  no  man  and  no  thing ;  only  to  God  and 
my  own  conscience,  with  publishers,  reviewers,  hawkers,  bill- 
stickers  indeed  on  the  earth  around  me,  but  with  the  stars  and  the 
azure  eternity  above  me  in  the  heavens.  Let  us  be  thankful.  On 
the  whole  I  am  rather  stupid ;  or  rather  I  am  not  stupid,  for  I  feel 
a  fierce  glare  of  insight  in  me  into  many  things.  Not  stupid,  but 
I  have  no  sleight  of  hand,  a  raw  untrained  savage— for  every  trained 
civilised  man  has  that  sleight,  and  is  a  bred  workman  by  having 
it,  the  bricklayer  with  his  trowel,  the  i^ainter  with  his  brush,  the 
writer  with  his  pen.  The  result  of  the  whole  is  *  one  must  just  do 
the  best  he  can  for  a  li^ing,  boy,'  or,  in  my  mother's  phrase, 
'Never  tine  heart,'  or  get  provoked  heart,  which  is  likewise  a 
danger. 

The  journal  adds: — 

On  Monday  last,  about  four  o'clock  on  a  wet  day,  I  finished  that 
MS.  I  ought  to  feel  thankful  to  Heaven,  but  scarcely  do  suffi- 
ciently. The  thing  itself  is  no  thing.  Nevertheless,  the  getting 
done  with  it  was  all  in  all.     I  could  do  no  other  or  better.     The 


48  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

book,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  now  go  on  with  some  impetus.  It  is 
not  enchanted  work,  but  fair  daylight  aboveboard  work,  though 
hard  work,  and  with  a  poor  workman.  I  am  now  for  Scotland,  to 
rest  myself  and  see  my  mother.  What  a  year  this  has  been  !  I 
have  suffered  much,  but  also  lived  much.  Courage !  hat  firmly 
set  on  head,  foot  firmly  planted.  Fear  nothing  but  fear.  I  fancy 
I  shall  go  in  an  Edinburgh  smack ;  not  the  worst  way,  and  the 
cheapest  though  slowest. 


CHAPTER  III. 

A.D.  1835—6.     ^T.  40—41. 

Visit  to  Scotland— Hard  conditions  of  life — Scotsbrig — Return  to 
London — Effort  of  faith — Letter  from  his  mother — Schemes 
for  employment — Offer  from  Basil  Montagu — Polar  bears — 
Struggles  with  the  book — Visit  from  John  Carlyle — Despond- 
ency— Money  anxieties — Mrs.  Carlyle  in  Scotland — Letters  to 
her — 'Diamond  Necklace '  printed — *  French  Revolution'  fin- 
ished. 

In  the  first  week  in  October  Carlyle  started  for  his  old 
home,  not  in  a  smack,  though  he  had  so  purposed,  but  in 
a  steamer  to  ^Newcastle,  whence  there  was  easy  access, 
though  railways  as  yet  were  not,  to  Carlisle  and  Annan- 
dale.  His  letters  and  diary  give  no  bright  picture  of  his 
first  year's  experience  in  London,  and  fate  had  dealt 
hardly  with  him  ;  but  he  had  gained  much  notwithstand- 
ing. His  strong  personality  had  drawn  attention  wlierever 
he  had  been  seen.  He  had  been  invited  with  his  wife 
into  cultivated  circles,  literary  and  political.  The  Ster- 
lings were  not  the  only  new  friends  whom  they  had  made. 
Their  poverty  was  unconcealed  ;  there  was  no  sham  in 
either  of  the  Carlyles,  and  there  were  many  persons  anx- 
ious to  help  them  in  any  form  in  which  help  could  be 
accepted.  Presents  of  all  kinds,  hampers  of  wine,  and 
suchlike  poured  in  upon  them.  Carlyle  did  not  speak  of 
these  things.  He  did  not  feel  them  less  than  other  peo- 
ple, but  he  was  chary  of  polite  expressions  which  are  so 
often  but  half  sincere,  and  he  often  seemed  indifferent  or 
ungracious  when  at  heart  he  was  warmly  grateful.  Mrs. 
Vol.  III.— 4 


60  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

Carlyle,  when  disappointed  of  her  trip  to  Scotland,  had 
been  carried  off  into  the  country  by  the  Sterlings  for  a 
week  or  two.  In  August  Mrs.  Welsh  came,  and  stayed  on 
while  Carlyle  was  away.  She  was  a  gifted  woman,  a  little 
too  sentimental  for  her  sarcastic  daughter,  and  trouble- 
some with  her  caprices.  They  loved  each  other  dearly 
and  even  passionately.  They  quarrelled  daily  and  made 
it  up  again.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  like  her  husband,  was  not 
easy  to  live  with.  But  on  the  whole  they  were  happy  to 
be  together  again  after  so  long  a  separation.  They  had 
friends  of  their  own  who  gathered  about  them  in  Carlyle's 
absence.  Mrs.  Carlyle  occupied  herself  in  learning  Ital- 
ian, painting  and  arranging  the  rooms,  negotiating  a  sofa 
out  of  her  scanty  allowance,  preparing  a  pleasant  surprise 
when  he  should  come  back  to  his  work.  He  on  his  part 
was  not  left  to  chew  his  own  reflections.  He  was  to  pro- 
vide the  winter  stock  of  bacon  and  hams  and  potatoes  and 
meal  at  Scotsbrig.  He  was  to  find  a  Scotch  lass  for  a  ser- 
vant and  bring  her  back  with  him.  He  was  to  dispose  of 
the  rest  of  the  Craigenputtock  stock  which  had  been  left 
unsold,  all  excellent  antidotes  against  spectral  visions.  He 
had  his  old  Annandale  relations  to  see  again,  in  whose 
fortunes  he  was  eagerly  interested,  and  to  write  long  sto- 
ries about  them  to  his  brother  John.  In  such  occupation, 
varied  with  daily  talks  and  smokes  with  his  mother,  and 
in  feeding  himself  into  health  on  milk  or  porridge,  Carlyle 
passed  his  holiday.  He  walked  far  and  fast  among  the 
hills,  with  an  understanding  of  their  charm  as  keen  as  an 
artist's,  though  art  he  affected  to  disdain. 

I  am  sometimes  sad  enough  (he  told  his  brother),  but  that,  too, 
is  profitable.  I  have  moments  of  inexpressible  beauty,  like  aui'o- 
ral  gleams  on  a  sky  all  dark.  My  book  seems  despicable ;  how- 
ever I  will  write  it.  After  that  there  remains  for  me — on  the  whole 
exactly  what  God  has  appointed,  therefore  let  us  take  it  thank- 
fully/ 


Ilolidmj  in  ScoUcmd,  61 

One  characteristic  letter  to  his  wife  remains,  written 
from  Scotsbrig  on  this  visit.  It  was  in  reply  to  her  pretty 
Anglo-Italian  epistle  of  October  26.' 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig :  November  2,  1836. 
All  people  say,  and,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  I  myself  rather 
feel,  that  my  health  is  greatly  improved  since  I  got  hither.  Alas ! 
the  state  of  wreckage  I  was  m,  fretted,  as  thou  sayest,  to  fiddle- 
strings,  was  enormous.  Even  yet,  after  a  month's  idleness  and 
much  recovery,  I  feel  it  all  so  well.  Silence  for  a  solar  year ;  this, 
were  it  possible,  would  be  my  blessedness.  All  is  so  black,  con- 
fused, about  me,  streaked  with  splendour  too  as  of  heaven  ;  and  I 
the  most  helpless  of  moi-tals  in  the  middle  of  it.  I  could  say  with 
Job  of  old,  '  Have  pity  upon  me,  have  x)ity  upon  me,  O  my  friends,* 
And  thou,  my  poor  Goody,  depending  on  cheerful  looks  of  mine 
ior  thy  cheerfulness  !  For  God's  sake  do  not,  or  do  so  as  little  as 
possible.  How  I  love  thee,  what  I  think  of  thee,  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  thou  or  any  mortal  will  know.  But  cheerful  looks,  when 
the  heart  feels  slowly  dying  in  floods  of  confusion  and  obstniction, 
are  not  the  thing  I  have  to  give.  Coumge,  however — courage  to 
the  last !  One  thing  in  the  middle  of  this  chaos  I  can  more  and 
more  determine  to  adhere  to — it  is  now  almost  my  sole  i-ule  of  life 
— to  clear  myself  of  cants  and  formulas  as  of  i:ioisonous  Nessus 
shirts ;  to  strip  them  off  me,  by  what  name  soever  called,  and  fol- 
low, were  it  down  to  Hades,  what  I  myself  know  and  see.  Pray 
God  only  that  sight  be  given  me,  freedom  of  eyes  to  see  with.  I 
fear  nothing  then,  nay,  hope  infinite  things.  It  is  a  great  misery 
for  a  man  to  lie,  even  unconsciously,  even  to  himself.  Also  I  feel 
at  this  time  as  if  I  should  never  laugh  more,  or  rather  say  never 
sniff  and  whiffle  and  pretend  to  laugh  more.     The  desj^icable  titter 

of  a  * ,'  for  example,  seems4o  me  quite  criminally  small.     Life 

is  no  frivolity,  or  hypothetical  coquetr}^  or  whifflery.  It  is  a  great 
'world  of  tnith,'  that  we  are  alive,  that  I  am  alive ;  that  I  saw  the 
*  Sweet  Milk  well '  yesterday,  flowing  for  the  last  four  thousand 
years,  from  its  three  sources  on  the  hill  side,  the  origin  of  Middle- 
bio  Burn,  and  noted  the  little  dell  it  had  hollowed  out  all  the  way, 
and  the  huts  of  Adam's  posterity  built  sluttishly  along  its  course, 
and  a  sun  shining  overhead  ninety  millions  of  miles  off,  and  eter- 

*  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  i.  p.  40. 


52  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

nity  all  round,  and  life  a  vision,  dream  and  yet  fact  woven  with 
njDroar  in  the  loom  of  time.  Withal  it  should  be  said  that  my  bil- 
iousness is  -considerable  to-day ;  that  I  am  not  so  unhappy  as  I 
talk,  nay,  perhaps  rather  happy  ;  in  one  word,  that  my  mother  in- 
dulged me  this  morning  in  a  cup  of !  I  am  actually  very  con- 
siderably better  than  when  we  parted. 

The  sheet  is  all  but  done,  and  no  w^ord  of  thanks  for  your  fine 
Italian-English  letter,  which  I  read  three  times  actually  and  did 
not  burn.  It  is  the  best  news  to  me  that  you  are  getting  better  ;  that 
you  feel  cheerful,  as  your  writing  indicated.  My  poor  Goody  !  it 
seems  as  if  she  could  so  easily  be  happy  ;  and  the  easy  means  are 
so  seldom  there.  Let  us  take  it  bravely,  honestly.  It  will  not 
break  us  both.  What  you  say  of  the  sofa  is  interesting,  more  than 
I  like  to  confess.  May  it  be  good  for  us !  I  feel  as  if  an  immeas- 
urable everlasting  sofa  was  precisely  the  thing  I  w^anted  even 
now.  Oh  dear !  I  wish  I  was  there,  on  the  simple  greatness  of 
that  one,  such  as  it  is,  and  Goody  might  be  as  near  as  she  liked. 
Hadere  nicht  mit  deiner  Mutter,  Liehste.  Trage,  trage  ;  es  wird  bald 
enden.^ 

God  bless  thee,  my  poor  little  darling.  I  think  we  shall  be 
happier  some  time,  and  oh,  how  happy  if  God  will ! 

Your  ever  affectionate 

T.  Caklyle. 

The  holiday  lasted  but  four  weeks,  and  Carlyle  was 
again  at  his  work  at  Chelsea.  He  was  still  restless,  of 
course,  with  so  heavy  a  load  upon  liim  :  but  he  did  his 
best  to  be  cheerful  under  it.  Her  chief  resources  were  the 
Sterlings  and  the  Italian  lessons,  and  as  long  as  she  was 
well  in  health  her  spirits  did  not  fail.  Him,  too,  the  Ster- 
lings' friendship  helped  much  to  encourage  ;  but  he  was 
absorbed  in  his  writing  and  could  think  of  little  else.  To 
his  brother  John  he  was  regolar  in  his  accounts  of  him- 
self, and  complained  as  little  as  could  be  expected. 

I  could  live  very  patiently  (he  said)  amid  this  circle  of  London 
people.  They  are  greatly  the  best  people  I  ever  walked  with. 
One  is  freer  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  esteemed  without 

1  Quarrel  not  with  your  mother,  dearest.  Be  patient ;  be  patient.  It  will 
Boon  end. 


Return  to  Loixdon,  53 

being  qnestioned,  more  at  home  tlian  one  has  been.  I  will  stay 
here  and  try  it  out  to  the  last ;  but  indeed  my  soul  is  like  to  grow 
quite  sick,  and  I  feel  as  if  no  resting-place  waited  me  on  this  side 
the  Great  Ocean.  It  is  a  petulant,  weak  thought ;  neither  do  I 
long  to  die  till  I  have  done  my  task.  I  think,  however,  I  will  quit 
literature. 

Journal. 

December  23,  1835. — To  write  of  the  conditions,  external  and  es- 
pecially internal,  in  which  I  live  at  present,  is  impossible  for  me  ; 
unprofitable  were  it  possible.  Bad  bodily  health  added  to  all  the 
rest  makes  the  ungainliest  result  of  it,  frightful,  drawing  towards 
what  consummation  ?  Silence  is  better.  Be  silent,  be  calm,  at 
least  not  mad.  On  the  4:th  of  this  month,  not  without  remember- 
ing and  bitterly  considering,  I  completed  my  fortieth  year.  Spir- 
itual strength,  as  I  feel,  still  grows  in  me.  All  other  things,  out- 
ward fortune,  business  among  men,  go  on  crumbling  and  decay- 
ing. Cest  egcd.  Providence  again  is  leading  me  through  dark, 
burning,  hideous  ways  towards  new  heights  and  developments. 
Nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  is  certain  to  me,  except  the  Divine 
Infernal  character  of  this  universe  I  live  in,  worthy  of  horror, 
worthy  of  worship.     So  much,  and  what  I  can  infer  from  that. 

Nothing  came  of  the  national  education  scheme.  Car- 
lyle  was  not  a  person  to  pusli  himself  into  notice.  Either 
Buller  and  his  other  friends  did  not  exert  themselves  for 
him,  or  they  tried  and  failed ;  governments,  in  fact,  do 
not  look  out  for  servants  among  men  who  are  speculating 
about  the  nature  of  the  universe.  Then  as  always  the 
doors  leading  into  regular  employment  remained  closed. 
From  his  mother  as  far  as  possible  he  concealed  his  anxi- 
eties. But  she  knew  him  too  well  to  be  deceived.  She, 
too,  was  heavy  at  heart  for  her  idolised  son,  less  on  account 
of  his  uncertain  prospects  than  for  the  want  of  faith,  as 
she  considered  it,  which  was  the  real  cause  of  his  trouble, 
lie  told  her  always  that  essentially  he  thought  as  she  did, 
but  she  could  hardly  believe  it ;  and  though  she  no  longer 
argued  or  remonstrated,  yet  she  dwelt  in  lier  letters  to 
him,  in  her  own  simple  way,  on  the  sources  of  her  own 


54:  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

consolation.  She  was  intensely  interested  in  his  work. 
She  was  identifying  herself  with  the  progress  of  it  by 
making  him  a  new  dressing-gown  which  was  to  be  his 
when  the  book  was  finished.  Yet  what  was  it  all  com- 
pared with  the  one  thing  needful  ?  One  of  her  letters  to 
him — one  out  of  many — may  be  inserted  here  as  a  speci- 
men of  what  this  noble  woman  really  was. 

Margaret  Carlyle  to  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  December  15,  1835. 
Dear  Son, — I  need  not  say  how  glad  I  was  to  see  your  hand  once 
more.  It  had  been  lying  at  the  post-office  for  some  time,  I  think, 
for  I  had  got  the  Annan  ones  the  day  before,  which,  I  think,  must 
have  been  sent  later  than  it.  They  were  all  thrice  welcome,  I 
am  glad  to  hear  you  are  getting  on  with  your  book,  in  spite  of  all 
the  difficulties  you  have  had  to  struggle  with,  which  have  been 
many.  I  need  not  say,  for  you  know  already,  I  wish  it  a  happy 
and  a  long  life.  Keep  a  good  heart.  May  God  give  us  all  grace 
to  stay  our  hearts  on  Him  who  has  said  in  His  word,  '  He  will 
keep  them  in  perfect  peace,  whose  minds  are  stayed  on  Him,  be- 
cause they  trust  in  Him.' 

"Wait  on  the  Lord  and  be  thou  strong, 

And  He  shall  strength  afford 
Unto  thy  heart :  yea,  do  thou  wait, 

I  say,  upon  the  Lord. 
What  time  my  heart  is  overwhelmed 

And  in  perplexity, 
Do  Thou  me  lead  unto  the  Rock 

That  higher  is  than  I. 

Let  us  not  be  careful  what  the  world  thinks  of  us,  if  we  can  say 
with  a  good  conscience  with  Toplady  : 

Careless,  myself  a  dying  man, 

Of  dying  men's  esteem  ; 
Happy,  oh  Lord,  if  Thou  approve, 

Though  all  beside  condemn. 

You  will  say  '  I  know  all  these  things.'  But  they  are  sooner  said 
than  done.  Be  of  courage,  my  dear  son,  and  seek  God  for  your 
guide. 

I  was  glad  to  hear  of  John  having  got  to  Rome.     He  has  had 
many  wanderings,  poor  fellow !     When  you  write,  will  you  thank 


Letter  from  his  Mother,  55 

him  for  his  letter  ho  sent  me  ?  I  was  got  rather  nneasy  about 
him.  I  think  there  are  none  that  has  got  so  much  cause  of  thank- 
fulness as  I.  We  are  all  going  on  the  old  way,  but  it  has  been 
such  a  year  as  I  do  not  remember  for  bad  weather.  It  has  grown 
worse  and  worse.  Nevertheless  it  is  better  than  we  deserve,  for 
we  are  froward  children,  a  sinful  generation.  God  be  merciful  to 
us  sinners.  He  has  never  dealt  with  us  as  we  deserve.  I  have 
been  full  well  all  this  winter,  till  I  got  a  face  cold  and  toothache. 
It  is  better  now,  almost  gone.  I  keep  good  fires  and  am  very  dry 
and  comfortable. 

Give  my  love  to  your  Goody.  I  am  glad  to  hear  she  is  rather 
better.  I  will  be  glad  to  see  you  both  here  to  rest  a  while  when 
the  fight  is  over.  There  perhaps  never  was  a  greater  scrawl. 
Wink  at  it.     God  bless  you,  my  dear  children. 

Your  affectionate  Mother, 

Maegaret  a.  CablyiiE. 

Another  shorter  letter  followed,  to  which  and  to  this 
one  Carlyle  answered. 

I  got  your  three  words,  mother,  and  was  right  glad  of  them  in 
the  absence  of  more.  I  assure  you  I  will  be  '  canny ' — nay  I  must, 
for  a  little  ovei-work  hurts  me,  and  is  found  on  the  moiTow  to  be 
quite  the  contrary  of  gain.  I  have  many  a  rebellious,  trouble- 
some thought  in  me,  i^roceeding  not  a  little  from  ill  health  of 
body.  But  I  deal  with  them  as  I  best  can,  and  get  them  kicked 
out.  Pride !  pride !  as  I  often  say.  It  lies  deep  in  me,  and  must 
be  beaten  out  with  many  stripes.  The  young  clergyman,  John 
Sterling  [did  he  wish  innocently  to  please  his  mother  by  the  cleri- 
cal character  of  his  friend?],  comes  very  much  about  me,  and 
proves  by  far  the  lovablest  man  I  have  met  for  many  a  year.  His 
speech  always  enlivens  me  and  shortens  the  long  walks  we  some- 
times take. 

It  was  very  difficult  for  Carlyle  (as  he  told  mo)  to  speak 
witli  (n-  write  to  liis  mother  directly  abont  religion.  She 
quieted  lier  anxieties  as  well  as  she  could  by  recognising 
the  deep  unquestionable  piety  of  her  son's  nature.  It  was 
on  the  worldly  side,  after  all,  that  there  was  real  cause  for 
alarm.  The  little  stock  of  money  would  be  gone  now  in 
a  few  months  ;  and  then  what  was  to  be  done  ?     America 


6Q  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

seemed  the  only  resource.  Yet  to  allow  sncli  a  man  to 
expatriate  himself — a  man,  too,  who  would  be  contented 
with  the  barest  necessaries  of  life — because  in  England  he 
could  not  live,  would  be  a  shame  and  a  scandal ;  and  va- 
rious schemes  for  keeping  him  were  talked  over  among 
his  friends.  The  difficulty  was  that  he  was  himself  so 
stubborn  and  impracticable.  He  would  not  write  in  the 
'  Times,'  because  the  '  Times  ^  was  committed  to  a  great 
political  party,  and  Carlyle  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
parties.  Shortly  after  he  came  back  from  Scotland,  he 
was  offered  the  editorship  of  a  newspaper  at  Lichfield. 
This  was  unacceptable  for  the  same  reason ;  and  if  he 
could  have  himself  consented,  his  wife  would  not.  She 
could  never  persuade  herself  that  her  husband  would  fail 
to  rise  to  greatness  on  his  own  lines,  or  allow  him  to  take 
an  inferior  situation.  In  mentioning  this  Lichfield  pro- 
posal to  his  brother  John,  she  said  : — 

I  declare  to  you,  my  dear  brother,  I  can  never  get  myself  worked 
Tip  into  proper  anxiety  about  how  soul  and  body  are  to  be  kept  to- 
gether. The  idea  of  starvation  cannot  somehow  ever  be  brought 
home  to  my  bosom.  I  have  always  a  sort  of  lurking  assurance 
that  if  one's  bread  ceases  it  will  be  possible  to  live  on  pie-crust. 
Besides,  whose  bread  ever  does  entirely  cease  who  has  brains  and 
fingers  to  bake  it,  unless  indeed  he  be  given  over  to  Salthound  ^ 
in  the  shape  of  strong  liquors,  which  is  not  my  case  happily  ? 

A  more  singular  proposition  reached  Carlyle  from  an- 
other quarter,  kindly  meant  perhaps,  but  set  forward  with 
an  air  of  patronage  whicli  the  humblest  of  men  would 
have  resented  unless  at  the  last  extremity  ;  and  humility 
was  cei-tainly  not  one  of  Carlyie's  qualities.  The  Basil 
Montagus  had  been  among  the  first  friends  to  whom  he 
had  been  introduced  by  Irving  when  he  came  to  London  in 
1824.  Great  things  had  been  then  expected  of  him  on 
Irving's   report.     Mrs.   Montagu   had   interested  herself 

1  Carlylean  name  for  Satan. 


Projected  EnvployiiieixU.  57 

deeply  in  all  his  concerns.  She  had  heen  initiated  into  tlie 
romamje  of  Jane  Welsh's  early  life,  and  it  was  by  her  in- 
terference (which  liad  never  been  wholly  forgiven)  that 
her  marriage  with  Carlyle  had  been  precipitated.  For 
some  years  a  correspondence  had  been  kept  np,  somewhat 
inflated  on  Mrs.  Montagu's  side,  but  showing  real  kind- 
ness and  a  real  wish  to  be  of  use.  The  acquaintance  had 
continued  after  the  Carlyles  settled  in  Chelsea,  but  Mrs. 
Montagu's  advances  had  not  been  very  warmly  received, 
and  were  suspected,  perhaps  unjustly,  of  not  being  com- 
pletely sincere.  The  sympathetic  letter  which  she  had 
ventured  to  write  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  on  Irving's  death  had 
been  received  rather  with  resentment  than  satisfaction. 
Still  the  Montagus  remained  in  the  circle  of  Carlyle's 
friends.  They  were  aware  of  his  circumstances,  and  were 
anxious  to  help  him  if  they  knew  how  to  set  about  it. 
It  was  with  some  pleasure,  and  perhaps  with  some  re- 
morse at  the  doubts  which  he  had  entertained  of  the  sin- 
cerity of  their  regard,  that  Carlyle  learned  that  Basil 
Montagu  had  a  situation  in  view  for  him  which,  if  he 
liked  it,  he  might  have — a  situation,  he  was  told,  which 
would  secure  him  a  sufficient  income,  and  would  leave 
him  time  besides  for  his  own  writing.  The  particulars 
were  reserved  to  be  explained  at  a  personal  interview. 
Carlyle  had  been  so  eager,  chiefly  for  his  wife's  sake,  to 
find  something  to  hold  on  to,  that  he  would  not  let  the 
smallest  plank  drift  by  without  examining  it.  \\q  had  a 
vague  misgiving,  but  he  blamed  himself  for  his  distrust. 
The  interview  took  place,  and  the  contempt  with  which 
he  describes  Mr.  Montagu's  proposition  is  actually  savage. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  January  26,  1836. 
Basil  Montagn  had  a  life  benefaction  all  cut  out  and  dried  for 
me — No :  it  depended  on  the  measure  of  p^titude  whether  it  was 
to  be  ready  for  me  or  for  another.     A  clerkship  under  him  at  the 


58  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

rate  of  200^.  a  year,  whereby  a  man  lecturing  also  in  mechanics' 
institutes  in  the  evening,  and  doing  etceteras,  might  live..  I  lis- 
tened with  grave  fixed  eyes  to  the  sovereign  of  quacks,  as  he 
mewed  out  all  the  fine  sentimentalities  he  had  stuffed  into  this 
beggarly  account  of  empty  boxes — for  which  too  I  had  been  sent 
trotting  many  miles  of  pavement,  though  I  knew  from  the  begin- 
ning it  could  be  only  moonshine — and,  with  grave  thanks  for  this 
potentiality  of  a  clerkship,  took  my  leave  that  night ;  and  next 
morning,  all  still  in  the  potential  mood,  sent  my  indicative  three- 
penny. My  wish  and  expectation  partly  is  that  Montagudom  gen- 
erally would  be  kind  enough  to  keep  its  own  side  of  the  pavement. 
Not  very  expressible  is  the  kind  of  feeling  the  whole  thing  now 
raises  in  me — madness  varnished  over  by  lies  which  you  see  through 
and  through.  One  other  thing  I  could  not  but  remark — the  faith 
of  Montagu  wishing  me  for  his  clerk  ;  thinking  the  polar  bear,  re- 
duced to  a  state  of  dyspeptic  dejection,  might  safely  be  trusted 
tending  rabbits.  Greater  faith  I  have  not  found  in  Israel.  Let  us 
leave  these  people.  They  shall  hardly  again  cost  me  even  an  ex- 
change of  threepennies. 

The  '  polar  bear,'  it  might  have  occnrred  to  Carljle,  is 
a  difficult  beast  to  find  accommodation  for.  People  do 
not  eagerly  open  their  doors  to  such  an  inmate.  Basil 
Montagu,  doubtless,  was  not  a  wise  man,  and  was  unaware 
of  the  relative  values  of  himself  and  the  person  that  he 
thought  of  for  a  clerk.  But,  after  all,  situations  suited 
for  polar  bears  are  not  easily  found  outside  the  Zoological 
Gardens.  It  was  not  Basil  Montagu's  fault  that  he  was 
not  a  person  of  superior  quality.  He  knew  that  Carlyle 
was  looking  anxiously  for  employment  with  a  fixed  salary, 
and  a  clerkship  in  his  ofiice  had,  in  his  eyes,  nothing  de- 
grading in  it.  Except  in  a  country  like  Prussia,  where  a 
discerning  government  is  on  the  look-out  always  for  men 
of  superior  intellect,  and  knows  what  to  do  with  them,  the 
most  gifted  genius  must  begin  upon  the  lowest  step  of  the 
ladder.  The  proposal  was  of  course  an  absurd  one,  and 
the  scorn  with  which  it  was  received  was  only  too  natural ; 
but  this  small  incident  shows  only  how  impossible  it  was 


i 


I 


The  Wi'ltiiuj  of  tlie  Book.  59 

at  this  time  to  do  anything  for  Carlyle  except  what  was 
actually  done,  to  leave  hini  to  climb  the  precipices  of  life 
by  his  own  unassisted  strength. 

Thus,  throughout  this  year  1836,  lie  remained  fixed  at 
liis  work  in  Cheyne  Row.     lie  wrote  all  the  morning.    In 
the  afternoon  he  walked,  sometimes  with  Mill  or  Sterling, 
'  more  often  alone,  making  his  own  reflections.     One  even- 
ing in  January,  he  writes  :    - 

I  thought  to-day  up  at  Hyde  Pai-k  Comer,  seeing  all  the  car- 
riages dash  hither  and  thither,  and  so  many  human  bipeds  cheerily 
hurrying  along,  *  There  you  go,  brothers,  in  your  gilt  carriages  and 
prosjjerities,  better  or  worse,  and  make  an  extreme  bother  and 
confusion,  the  devil  very  largely  in  it.  And  I  too,  by  the  blessing 
of  the  Maker  of  me,  I  too  am  authorized  and  equipjied  by  Heaven's 
Act  of  Parliament  to  do  that  small  secret  somewhat,  and  will  do  it 
without  any  consultation  of  yours.  Let  us  be  brothers,  therefore, 
or  at  worst  silent  peaceable  neighbours,  and  each  go  his  own 
way.' 

Carlyle  was  radical  enough  in  the  sense  that  he  had  no 
respect  for  the  gilt  carriages,  and  knew  >vhither  they  were 
probably  rolling,  but  he  had  neither  purpose  nor  wish  to 
be  a  revolutionary  agitator,  knowing  that  revolution  meant 
only  letting  the  devil  loose,  whom  it  was  man's  duty 
to  keep  bound.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  confined  through  the 
winter  and  spring  with  a  dangerous  cough.  He  himself, 
though  he  complained,  was  fairly  well ;  nothing  was  es- 
sentially the  matter,  but  he  slept  badly  from  overwork, 
*  gaeing  stavering  aboot  the  hoose  at  night,'  as  the  Scotch 
maid  said,  restless  alike  in  mind  and  body.  When  he 
paused  from  his  book  to  write  a  letter  or  a  note  in  his 
journal,  it  was  to  discover  a  state  of  nerves  irritated  by 
the  contrast  between  his  actual  performance  and  the  sense 
of  what  he  was  trying  to  accomplish.  The  ease  which  he 
expected  when  the  lost  volume  was  recovered  had  not 
been  found.     The  toil  was  severe  as  ever. 


;60  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

Journal. 

March  22,  1836. — Month  after  month  passes  without  any  notice 
here.  In  some  four  days  I  expect  to  be  done  with  the  chapter 
called  *  Legislative.'  It  has  been  a  long  and  sorry  task.  My 
health,  veiy  considerably  worse  than  usual,  held  me  painfully 
back.  The  work,  it  oftenest  seems  to  me,  will  never  be  worth  a 
rush,  yet  I  am  writing  it,  as  they  say,  with  my  heart's  blood.  The 
sorrow  and  chagrin  I  suffer  is  very  great.  Physical  pain  is  bad — 
dispiritment,  gloomy  silence  of  rebellion  against  myself  and  all 
the  aiTangements  of  my  existence  is  worse.  I  shudder  sometimes 
at  the  abysses  I  discern  in  myself,  the  acrid  hunger,  the  shivering 
sensitiveness,  the  wickedness  (and  yet  can  I  say  at  this  moment 
that  I  think  myself  rightly  wicked?)  Confusion  clings  to  a 
man. 

There  is  something  edifying,  however,  in  the  perfectly  composed 
peace  of  mind  with  which  I  have  renounced  one  province  of  my 
interests  and  given  it  up  to  Fortune  to  do  her  own  will  with  it : 
the  economical  province.  Oar  money  runs  fast  away  daily.  It 
will  be  about  done  at  the  time  this  book  is  done  ;  and  then — my 
destiny,  as  it  were,  ends.  I  seem  not  to  care  a  straw  for  that ; 
nay,  rather  to  like  it,  if  anything,  as  implying  the  end  of  much 
else  that  is  growing  insupportable.  Some  vague  outlook,  which  I 
half  know  to  be  inane,  opens  in  my  imagination  to  America,  or 
some  western  woods  and  solitude,  far  from  the  fret  and  confusion 
of  these  places  ;  rest  anywhere  ;  and  yet  I  still  do  not  want  gener- 
ally to  rest  in  the  grave.  All  fame,  and  so  forth,  seems  the 
wretchedest  mockery.  It  sometimes  appears  possible  that  it  may 
come  my  way  too — for  I  do  not  hide  from  myself  that  I  am  above 
hundreds  that  have  it.  But  even  in  that  case  I  say  honestly  Wozu  ? 
one  dies  soon — soon — and  his  fame  !  Say  it  lived  three  centuries 
after  him  I  I  do  pray  to  God  to  be  guided  into  some  more  solid 
anchor  ground,  and  to  leave  that  as  a  restless  quicksand — mud — 
which  has  swallowed  up  so  many,  to  welter  according  to  its  own 
will.  Also,  it  many  times  strikes  me.  Being  in  ill-health  and  so 
miserable,  art  thou  not  of  a  surety  wrong  ?  Wliy  not  quit  liter- 
ature— with  a  vengeance  to  it — and  turn,  were  it  even  to  sheep 
herding,  where  one  can  be  well?  Dark  straits  and  contentions  of 
will  against  constraint  seem  to  threaten  me — I  cannot  help  it. 
Peace  !  peace !    It  is  one's  own  mind  that  is  wrong. 


Garden  Work.  61 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  March  31,  18S6u 
It  seems  as  if  I  were  enchanted  to  this  sad  book.  Peace  in  the 
world  there  will  be  none  for  me  till  I  have  it  done  ;  and  then  very 
generally  it  seems  the  miserablest  mooncalf  of  a  book,  full  of 
Ziererei  (affectation),  do  what  I  will ;  tumbling  head  foremost 
through  all  manner  of  established  rules.  And  no  money  to  be  had 
for  it ;  and  no  value  that  I  can  count  on  of  any  kind,  simply  the 
blessedness  of  being  done  with  it.  It  comes  across  me  like  the 
breath  of  heaven,  that  I  shall  verily  be  done  with  it  in  some  few 
weeks  now.  Then  let  it  go,  to  be  trodden  down  in  the^utters  if 
the  poor  people  like  ;  to  be  lifted  on  poles  if  they  like,  to  be  made 
a  kirk  and  a  mill  of.  The  indifference  that  I  feel  about  all  mortal 
things  is  really  very  considerable.  Glory  and  disgi-ace,  poverty 
and  wealth,  gig  and  eight,  or  torn  shoe  soles,  behold,  brethren,  it 
is  all  alike  to  me.  I  too  have  my  indefeasible  lot  and  portion  in 
this  God's  univei-se  of  vapour  and  substance,  and  grudge  you  not, 
and  hate  you  not,  rather  love  you  in  an  underhand  manner  and 
wish  you  speed  on  your  path. 

At  the  back  of  Carlyle's  house  in  Cheyne  Row  is  a  strip 
of  garden,  a  grass  plot,  a  few  trees  and  flower-beds  along 
the  walls,  where  are  (or  were)  some  bits  of  jessamine  and 
a  gooseberry-bush  or  two,  transported  from  Haddington 
and  Craigenputtock.  Here,  wlien  spring  came  on,  Car- 
lyle used  to  dig  and  plant  and  keep  the  grass  trim  and 
tidy.  Sterling  must  have  seen  him  with  his  spade  there 
when  he  drew  the  picture  of  Collins  in  the  '  Onyx  Tling,' 
which  is  evidently  designed  for  Carlyle.  The  digging 
must  have  been  more  of  a  relaxation  for  him  than  the 
■walks,  where  the  thinking  and  talking  went  on  without 
interruption.  Very  welcome  and  a  real  relief  was  the 
arrival  of  his  brother  John  at  last  in  the  middle  of  April. 
Lady  Clare  could  not  part  with  him  in  the  autumn,  but 
she  had  come  now  herself,  bringing  the  doctor  with  her, 
and  had  allowed  him  three  months'  leave  of  absence.  Half 
his  holiday  was  to  be  spent  in  Cheyne  Row.  The  second 
volume  of  the  '  Revolution '  was  finished,  and  Carlyle  gave 


62  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

himself  up  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  brother's  company. 
He  had  six  weeks  of  real  rest  and  pleasure  ;  for  his  curi- 
osity was  insatiable,  and  John,  just  from  Italy,  could  tell 
him  infinite  things  which  he  wanted  to  know.  Scotsbrig, 
of  course,  had  claims  which  were  to  be  respected.  When 
these  wrecks  were  over,  John  had  to  go  north,  and  Carlyle 
attended  him  down  the  river  to  the  Hull  steamer. 

'  Yery  cheery  to  me  poor  Jack,'  he  writes  when  alone  at 
home  ao;ain ;  '  I  feel  without  him  quite  orphaned  and 
alone.'  *ilone,  and  at  the  mercy  again  of  the  evil  spirits 
wdiom  '  Jack's '  round  face  had  kept  at  a  distance. 

Journal. 

June  1,  1836. — My  dispiritment,  my  sorrow  and  pain  are  great, 
but  I  strive  to  keep  silent.  Silence  is  the  only  method.  I  am 
weary  and  heavy-laden,  wearied  of  all  things,  ahnost  of  life  itself — 
yet  not  altogether.  It  is  fearful  and  wonderful  to  me.  Often  it 
seems  as  if  the  only  grand  and  beautiful  and  desirable  thing  in 
this  dusty  fuliginous  chaos  were  to  die.  Death  !  The  unknown 
sea  of  rest !  Who  knows  what  hidden  harmonies  lie  there  to  wrap 
us  in  softness,  in  eternal  peace,  where  perhaps,  and  not  sooner  or 
elsewhere,  all  the  hot  longings  of  the  soul  are  to  be  satisfied  and 
stilled  ? 

An  eternity  of  life  were  not  endurable  to  any  mortal.  To  me 
the  thought  of  it  were  madness  even  for  one  day.  Oh  !  I  am  far 
astray,  wandering,  lost,  '  dyeing  the  thirsty  desert  with  my  blood 
in  every  footprint.'  Perhaps  God  and  His  providence. will  be  bet- 
ter to  me  than  I  hope.     Peace,  peace  !  words  are  idler  than  idle. 

I  have  seen  Wordsworth  again.  I  have  seen  Landor,  Americans, 
Frenchmen — Cavaignac  the  Kepublican.  Be  no  word  written  of 
them.  Bubble  bubble,  toil  and  trouble.  I  find  emptiness  and 
chagrin,  look  for  nothing  else,  and  on  the  whole  can  reverence  no 
existing  man,  and  shall  do  well  to  pity  all,  myself  first — or  rather 
last.     To  work  therefore.     That  will  still  me  a  little  if  aught  will. 

The  old,  old  story:  genius,  the  divine  gift  which  men 
so  envy  and  admire,  which  is  supposed  to  lift  its  possessor 
to  a  throne  among  the  gods,  gives  him,  with  the  intensity 
of   insight,   intensity   of   spii'itual   suffering.     His   laurel 


J>iscvpline  of  Genius.  63 

wreath  is  a  crown  of  tliorns.  To  all  men  Carlyle  preached 
the  duty  of  '  consuming  their  own  smoke,'  and  faithfully 
he  fulfilled  his  own  injunction.  lie  wrote  no  '  Werthers 
I^iden,' no  musical  'Childe  Harold,' to  relieve  liis  own 
lieart  hy  inviting  the  world  to  weep  with  him.  So  far  as 
the  world  was  concerned,  he  bore  his  pains  in  silence,  and 
only  in  his  journal  left  any  written  record^  of  them.  At 
home,  however,  he  could  not  always  be  reticent ;  and  his 
sick  wife,  whose  spirits  needed  raising,  missed  John's  com- 
panionship as  much  as  her  husband.  The  household  eco- 
nomics became  so  pressing  that  the  book  had  to  be  sus- 
pended for  a  couple  of  weeks  while  Carlyle  wrote  the  ar- 
ticle on  Mirabeau,  now  printed  among  the  '  Miscellanies,' 
for  MilTs  Review.  Some  fifty  pounds  was  made  by  this ; 
but  by  the  time  the  article  was  finished,  Mrs.  Carlyle  be- 
came so  ill  that  she  felt  that  unless  she  could  get  away  to 
her  mother  '  she  would  surely  die.'  Carlyle  himself  could 
not  think  of  moving,  unless  for  a  day  or  two  to  a  friend  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  London  ;  but  everything  was  done 
that  circumstances  permitted.  She  went  first  to  her  uncle 
at  Liverpool,  meaning  to  proceed  (for  economy)  by  the 
Annan  steamer,  though  in  her  weak  state  she  dreaded  a 
sea  voyage.  She  was  sent  forward  by  the  coach.  John 
Carlyle  met  )ier  and  carried  her  on  to  her  mother  at  Temp- 
land,  who  had  a  *  purse  of  sovereigns'  ready  for  her  as  a 
birthday  present  (July  14).  Carlyle  himself  wrote  to  her 
daily,  making  the  best  of  his  condition  that  she  might 
have  as  little  anxiety  as  possible  on  his  account.  After 
she  was  gone  he  paid  a  visit  to  John  Mill,  who  was  then 
living  in  the  country. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  at  Templand. 

Chelsea  :  July  34,  183a 
I  mnst  tell  yon  about  the  Mill  visit,  for  I  think  I  sent  you  a 
token  that  I  was  Roinf?.     I  went  acoonlinprlj.     It  is  a  pretty  coun- 
try—a pretty  village  of  the  English  straggling  wooded  sort.     The 


64  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Mills  have  joined  some  '  old  carpenter's  shops  '  together,  and  made 
a  pleasant  summer  mansion  (connected  by  shed-roofed  passages), 
the  little  drawing-room  door  of  glass  looking  out  into  a  rose  lawn, 
into  green  plains,  and  half  a  mile  off  to  a  most  respectable  wooded 
and  open  broad-shouldered  green  hill.  They  were  as  hospitable 
as  they  could  be.  I  was  led  about,  made  attentive  to  innumerable 
picturesquenesses,  &c.  &c.,  all  that  evening  and  next  day.  ... 
There  was  little  sorrow  visible  in  their  house,  or  rather  none,  nor 
any  human  feeling  at  all ;  but  the  strangest  unheimlich  kind  of 
composure  and  acquiescence,  as  if  all  human  spontaneity  had 
taken  refuge  in  invisible  corners.  Mill  himself  talked  much,  and 
not  stupidly — far  from  that — but  without  emotion  of  any  discerni- 
ble kind.  He  seemed  to  me  to  be  withering  or  withered  into  the 
miserablest  metaphysical  scrae,'^  body  and  mind,  that  I  had  almost 
ever  met  with  in  the  world.  His  eyes  go  twinkling  and  Jerking 
with  wild  lights  and  twitches;  his  head  is  bald,  his  face  brown 
and  dry — poor  fellow  after  all.  It  seemed  to  me  the  strangest 
thing  what  this  man  could  want  with  me,  or  I  with  such  a  man  so 
unheimlich  to  me.  What  will  become  of  it  ?  Nothing  evil ;  for 
there  is  and  there  was  nothing  dishonest  in  it.  But  I  think  I  shall 
see  less  and  less  of  him.  Alas,  poor  fellow !  It  seems  possible 
too  that  he  may  not  be  very  long  seeable  :  that  is  one  way  of  its 
ending — to  say  nothing  of  my  own  chances. 

As  for  the  chapter  [of  the  '  French  Eevolution ']  entitled  '  Sep- 
tember,' the  poor  Goody  knows  with  satisfaction  that  it  is  done. 
I  worked  all  day,  not  all  night :  indeed,  oftenest  not  at  night  at 
all ;  but  went  out  and  had  long  swift-striding  w^alks — till  ten — 
under  the  stars.  I  have  also  slept,  in  general,  tolerably.  For  the 
last  ten  days,  however,  I  have  been  poisoned  again  with  veal  soup, 
beef  being  unattainable.  I  will  know  again.  The  chapter  is  some 
thirty-six  pages  :  not  at  all  a  bad  chapter.  Would  the  Goody  had 
it  to  read !  A  hundred  pages  more,  and  this  cursed  book  is  flung 
out  of  me.  I  mean  to  write  with  force  of  fire  till  that  consumma- 
tion ;  above  all  with  the  speed  of  fire  ;  still  taking  intervals,  of 
course,  and  resting  myself.  The  unrested  horse  or  writer  cannot 
work.  But  a  despicability  of  a  thing  that  has  so  long  held  mo, 
and  held  us  both  down  to  the  grindstone,  is  a  thing  I  could  almost 
swear  at  and  kick  out  of  doors;  at  least  most  swiftly  equip  for 
walking  out  of  doors.  Speranza,  thou  spairkin  Goody  !  Hope,  my 
little  lassie  !  It  will  all  be  better  than  thou  thinkest.  For  two  or 
1  Scrae^  '  an  old  shoe  '  (Dumfriesshire). 


Letter  to  his  Wife.  65 

three  days  I  have  the  most  perfect  rest  now.  Then  Louis  is  to  be 
tried  and  guillotined.  Then  the  Gironde,  &c.  It  all  stands  pretty 
fair  in  my  head,  nor  do  I  mean  to  investigate  much  more  about  it, 
but  to  splash  down  what  I  know  in  large  masses  of  colours,  that  it 
may  look  like  a  smoke-and-flame  conflagration  in  the  distance, 
which  it  is.     .     .     . 

My  dear  little  Janekin,  I  must  leave  thee  now.  Write  a  long 
letter.  They  are  icdl  very  pleasant,  very  good  for  me ;  but  the  *  re- 
posing humour '  would  give  me  the  most  pleasure  of  all.  Gehab 
click  wohl !  Sey  hold  mir  !  Iloffe  ;  zweifie  nicht.  (Keep  well  !  Be 
good  to  me  !  Hope ;  do  not  tine  heart.)  Kiss  your  kind  mother 
for  me.     Adieu  !  Au  revoir  ! 

Ever  affectionately  thine, 

T.  CARLYIiE. 

His  heart  was  less  light  than  he  tried  to  make  it  appear. 
The  journal  of  August  1  says  : — 

Have  finished  chapter  i.  (September)  of  my  third  volume,  and 
gone  idle  a  week  after,  till  as  usual  I  am  now  reduced  to  a  caput 
mortuum  again,  and  do  this  day  begin  my  second  chapter,  to  be 
called  'Regicide.'  Jane  in  Dumfriesshire  these  three  weeks  or 
more,  shattered  vdth  agitation.  I  see  no  one — not  even  the  French- 
men * — for  above  two  weeks  ;  very  dreary  of  outlook  ;  one  sole 
guiding  star  for  me  on  eai-th,  that  of  getting  done  with  my  book. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  scarcely  better  off,  Scotch  air  having 
done  little  for  her.     He  writes  to  her  a  week  later. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  August  8. 
Du  armes  Kind, — The  letter,  which  I  opened  with  eagerness 
enough,  made  me  altogether  wae.  No  rest  for  the  poor  wearied 
one.  In  her  mother's  house,  too,  she  must  wake  *  at  four  in  the 
morning,'  and  have  frettings  and  annoyances.  It  is  veiy  hard. 
The  world  is  so  wide  ;  and  for  my  poor  Jane  there  is  no  place 
where  she  can  find  shelter  in  it.  Patience,  my  poor  lassie  !  It  is 
not  so  bad  as  that :  it  shall  not  be  so  bad. 

Since  there  is  no  good  to  be  done  in  Scotland,  what  remains  but 
that  you  come  back  hither  with  such  despatch  as  suits?    There  is 
quietude  here  ;  there  is  liberty  ;  you  shall  have  bread  to  eat.     We 
»  Gamier  and  Godefroi  Cavaignao.    See  Leitera  and^MemoriaU^  vol.  L 
Vol.  III.-5 


66  Carlyle's  Life  in  London., 

can  even  procure  you  a  little  milk,  for  the  man  comes  yowling 
regularly  at  the  stroke  of  seven.  I  wish  to  heaven  I  were  better, 
cheerfuller ;  but  I  take  heaven  to  witness  I  will  be  as  cheerful  as 
I  can.  I  will  do  what  is  in  me,  and  swim  with  myself  and  thee. 
I  do  not  think  the  waves  can  swallow  us.  Open  thy  heart  out 
again  to  me  ;  have  hope,  courage,  softness — not  bitterness  and 
hardness — and  they  shall  not  swallow  us.  In  any  case,  what  refuge 
is  there  but  here  ?  Here  is  the  place  for  my  poor  Goody ;  let  us 
sink  or  swim  together. 

If  I  did  not  know  how  little  advice  could  profit  in  such  matters, 
how  it  even  exasi^erates  and  makes  the  case  worse,  I  would  pray 
earnestly  in  the  meantime  for  that  very  thing  which  we  so  often 
laugh  at  in  poor  Jack — meekness,  submission  to  the  will  of  Heaven. 
Open  thy  eyes  from  those  Templand  windows.  The  earth  is  green, 
jewelled  with  many  a  flower.  The  sky  arches  itself,  also  beautiful, 
overhead.  It  is  not,  in  the  name  of  God,  a  place  of  bitter  hope- 
lessness for  any  living  creature,  but  it  is  emphatically  the  place  of 
hope  for  all.  Oh !  that  Edinburgh  style  of  mockery !  Me  too 
with  its  hard  withering  influence,  its  momentary  solacement,  fatal- 
ler  than  any  j)ain,  it  had  wellnigh  conducted  to  Hades  and  Tophet. 
But  I  flung  it  off,  and  am  alive.  Oh  that  my  poor  much-suffering 
Jane  had  done  so  too ! — flung  it  off  from  the  very  heart  for  ever 
— and  in  soft  devoutness  of  submission  (wherein  lies  what  the  man 
calls  the  '  divine  depth  of  sorrow ')  had  recognised  once  that  the 
stern  necessity  was  also  the  just ;  that  the  thing,  stronger  than  we, 
was  also  the  better — wiser.  But  I  will  preach  no  more.  I  will 
pray  and  wish  rather,  in  my  heart  of  hearts.  Nay,  I  will  prophesy 
too ;  for  nothing  shall  ever  make  me  believe  that  a  soul  so  ty^ue 
and  full  of  good  things  can  continue  strangling  itself  in  that  man- 
ner, sore,  sore,  though  its  perjilexities  be.  Oh  my  poor  lassie, 
what  a  life  thou  hast  led  ! — and  I  could  not  make  it  other.  It  was 
to  be  that,  and  not  another. 

And  so,  after  all,  then,  what  is  to  be  done  but  come  back  again 
by  easy  stages,  and  do  the  best  we  can  ?  This  visit  to  Scotland  will 
not  have  been  in  vain.  It  exhausts  another  possibility.  It  ren- 
ders one  quieter.  Nay,  in  spite  of  all  these  splashings  of  rain, 
weary  waitings  for  some  one  rising,  these  annoyances  and  disap- 
pointments, I  believe  the  very  change  of  scene,  of  habitual  speech 
and  course  of  thought,  will  be  of  salutaiy  influence.  The  din  of 
London  is  stilled  in  you  by  this  time.  The  mind  will  be  fresh  to 
take  it  up  again,  and  find  it  more  harmonious  than  it  was.     Gehab 


Letter  to  his  Wife.  67 

dich  tpohl !  Bo  peaceable,  my  j^oor  weary  Bhattered  bairn.  Har- 
den not  thy  heart,  but  soften  it.  Open  it  to  hope  and  me.  Say  all 
that  is  kind  to  your  mother  for  me.  Forgive  her  *  ways  of  doing.' 
They  are  her  ways,  though  very  tormenting. 

It  is  half-past  four,  and  I  am  still  in  my  dressing-gown.  Addio, 
carissima.     God  be  with  thee,  my  wee  Goody  ! 

T.  CarlyiiE. 

John  came  back  with  the  fall  of  the  summer  to  rejoin 
Lady  Clare,  and  passed  a  few  more  days  alone  with  his 
brother. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  Augugt  24. 

Parliament  being  dissolved,  prorogued  I  believe,  there  are  no 
franks.  Jack  said  on  Saturday,  *  Here  is  a  ticket  Lady  Clare  has 
sent  me ;  will  you  not  go  and  see  the  King  prorogue  Parliament  ? ' 
*  Sir,'  I  answered,  *  if  he  were  going  to  blow  up  Parliament  with 
gunpowder,  I  would  hardly  go,  being  busy  elsewhere.'  .  .  . 
Lie  still,  thou  poor  wearied  one.  Stir  not  till  the  hour  come  for 
travelling  hither  again.  After  all,  I  calculate  the  journey  will  not 
prove  useless.  A  healthy  influence  lies  in  the  veiy  change  of  ideas 
and  objects — such  a  total  change  as  that.  Seated  by  our  own 
hearth  again,  much  that  was  a  burble  will  begin  to  unravel  itself. 
There  are  better  days  coming :  I  say  it  always,  and  swear  it,  with 
a  kind  of  indestructible  faith.  But  we  must  be  ready  for  the  bad, 
for  the  worse,  and  meet,  not  in  bitter  violence,  but  in  courageous 
genial  humour,  as  quiet  at  least  as  may  be.     .     .     . 

If  a  Goody  were  well,  and  a  good,  acli  Gott,  why  should  we  not 
be  happy  enough,  in  spite  of  twenty  poverties  ?  Patience,  lassie  ! 
let  us  take  it  quietly.  The  book  will  be  done.  I  shall  rest,  bo 
better ;  all  will  be  better.  Consider  this  fact,  too,  which  really 
has  a  truth  in  it.  Great  sorrow  never  lasts.  It  is  like  a  stream 
stemmed — must  begin  flowing  again.  There  is  really,  I  say,  a 
truth  in  that,  grounded  in  the  nature  of  things.  Oh  my  poor 
bairn,  be  not  faithless,  but  believing.  Do  not  fling  life  away  as 
insupportable,  despicable,  but  let  us  work  it  out  and  rest  it  out 
together,  like  a  true  twoy  though  under  sore  obstnictions.  Fools 
in  all  circumstances,  sliort  of  Tophet,  very  probably  in  Tophet  it- 
self, have  one  way  of  doing ;  wise  men  have  a  different,  infinitely 
better.     I  say  *  infinitely,*  for  that  also  is  a  fact;  and  so  God  di- 


k 


68  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

rect  us  and  help  us  !     God  send  thee  soon,  and  safe  back  again  ; 
and  so  ends  my  sermon. 

It  lias  pleased  Carljle  to  admit  the  world  behind  the 
scenes  of  his  domestic  life.  He  has  allowed  us  to  see  that 
all  was  not  as  well  there  as  it  might  have  been,  and  in  his 
own  generous  remorse  he  has  taken  the  blame  upon  him- 
self. 1^0  one,  however,  can  read  these  letters,  or  ten 
thousand  others  like  them,  without  recognising  the  affec- 
tionate tenderness  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  his  nature. 
Iso  one  also  can  read  between  the  lines  w^ithout  observing 
that  poverty  and  dispiritment  and  the  burden  of  a  task  too 
heavy  for  him  was  not  all  that  Carlyle  had  to  bear.  She 
on  her  part,  no  doubt,  had  much  to  put  up  with.  It  was 
not  easy  to  live  with  a  husband  subject  to  strange  fits  of 
passion  and  depression ;  often  as  unreasonable  as  a  child, 
and  with  a  Titanesque  power  of  making  mountains  out  of 
molehills.  But  she  might  have  seen  more  clearly  than 
she  did,  in  these  deliberate  expressions  of  his  feeling,  the 
soundness  of  his  judgment,  and  the  genuine  simple  truth 
and  loyalty  of  his  heart.  Let  those  married  pairs  who 
never  knew  a  quarrel,  whose  days  run  on  unruffled  by  a 
breeze,  be  grateful  that  their  lot  has  been  cast  in  pleasant 
circumstances,  for  otherwise  their  experience  will  have 
been  different.  Let  them  be  grateful  that  they  are  not 
persons  of  ^genius'  or  blessed  or  cursed  with  sarcastic 
tongues.  The  disorder  which  had  driven  Mrs.  Carlyle  to 
Scotland  w^as  mental  as  well  as  bodily.  The  best  remedy 
for  it  lay,  after  all,  at  home ;  and  she  came  back,  as  she 
said,  after  two  months'  absence,  '  a  sadder  and  a  wiser 
woman.'  Carlyle  had  gone  off  intending  to  meet  her  at 
the  office,  but  the  coach  was  before  its  time,  or  he  had 
mistaken  the  hour. 

I  had  my  luggage  (she  said)  put  on  the  backs  of  two  porters, 
and  walked  on  to  Cheapside,  when  I  presently  found  a  Chelsea 
omnibus.     By-and-by  the  omnibus  stopped,  and  amid  cries  of  '  No 


Style  once  More.  69 

room,  sir;  can't  get  in,'  Carlyle's  face,  beautifully  set  off  by  a 
broad-brimmed  white  hat,  gazed  in  at  the  door  like  the  Peri  *  who, 
at  the  gate  of  Heaven,  stood  disconsolate.'  In  huiiying  along  the 
Strand,  his  eye  had  lighted  on  my  trunk  packed  on  the  top  of  the 
omnibus,  and  ho  recognised  it.  This  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most 
indubitable  proofs  of  genius  -which  he  ever  manifested. 

She  had  returned  mended  in  spirits.  Jolin  had  gone 
two  days  before,  and  was  on  his  way  to  Italy  again,  but 
the  effects  remained  of  his  cheery  presence,  and  all  things 
were  looking  better.  The  article  on  Mirabeau  was  printed, 
and  had  given  satisfaction.  The  '  Diamond  Kecklace '  was 
to  come  out  in  parts  in  Fraser,  and  bring  in  a  little  money. 
Carlyle  had  never  written  anything  more  beautiful ;  and 
it  speaks  indifferently  for  English  criticism  that  about  this, 
w^hen  it  appeared,  the  newspapers  were  as  scornful  as  they 
had  been  about  *  Sartor ' — a  bad  omen  foi-  the  *  French 
Eevolution,'  for  the  ^  Diamond  JS'ecklace '  was  a  prelimi- 
nary chapter  of  the  same  drama.  But  the  opinions  of  the 
newspapers  had  long  become  matters  of  indifference.  The 
financial  pressure  would  be  relieved  at  any  rate,  and  the 
air  in  Cheyne  Row,  within  doors  and  without,  was  like  a 
still  autumn  afternoon,  when  the  equinoctials  have  done 
blowing.  The  book  was  nearly  finished.  John  Carlyle 
had  read  the  MS.  and  had  criticised.  The  style  had 
startled  hinj,  as  the  style  of  '  Sartor'  had  startled  Sterling. 
Carlyle  had  listened  patiently,  and  had  made  some  change 
in  deference  to  his  brother's  opinion. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  September  12,  1836. 
As  to  what  you  admonished  about  style,  though  you  goodna- 
turedly  fall  away  from  it  now,  there  actually  was  some  profit  in  it, 
and  some  effect.  It  reminds  me  once  more  that  there  are  always 
two  parties  to  a  good  style — the  contented  -writer  and  the  contented 
reader.  Many  a  little  thing  I  propose  to  alter  with  an  eye  to 
greater  cleaniess  ;  but  the  grand  point  at  present  is  to  get  done 
briefly.    I  find  I  have  only  eighty-eight  pages  in  all,  and  infinite 


70  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

matter  to  cram  into  them.  I  pui-pose  investigating  almost  no  far- 
ther, but  dashing  in  what  I  akeady  have  in  some  compendious, 
grandiose,  massive  way.  I  really  feel  veiy  well  at  present.  The 
joy  I  anticipate  in  finishing  this  book  is  considerable.  Go,  thou 
unhappy  book  !  Thou  hast  nearly  wrung  the  life  out  of  me.  Go 
in  God's  name  or  the  Devil's ;  one  will  be  free  after  that,  and  look 
abroad  over  the  world  to  see  what  it  holds  for  one.  I  am  reading 
Eckermann's  '  Conversations  with  Goethe,'  borrowed  from  Mrs. 
Austin.  It  does  me  great  good  for  the  time  :  such  a  clear  serene 
enjoyment,  so  different  from  this  Revolution  one  ;  and  yet  it  is 
not  my  environment  now — will  not  yield  me  Obdacli  (shelter)  here 
and  now.  Goethe  is  great,  brown -visage d,  authentic-looking,  in 
this  book,  yet  rdthselhaft  (enigmatic)  here  and  there  to  me.  .  .  . 
Enough,  enough.  Do  not  conjugate  ennuyer,  dear  Jack,  if  you 
can  help  it ;  conjugate  esperer  rather.  Depend  upon  it,  working, 
trying,  is  the  only  remover  of  doubt.  It  is  an  immense  truth  that. 
The  stream  looks  so  cold,  dreary,  dangerous.  You  stand  shiver- 
ing. You  plunge  in.  Behold,  it  carries  you :  you  can  swim. 
Take  my  blessing  and  brotherly  prayers  with  you.  T.  0. 

As  the  end  of  the  book  came  in  view,  the  question — 
what  next  ?  began  to  present  itself.  It  was  as  morning 
twilight  after  a  long  night,  and  surrounding  objects 
showed  in  their  natural  form.  Evidently  Carlyle  did  not 
expect  that  it  would  bring  liim  money  or  directly  better 
his  fortunes.  All  that  he  looked  for  was  to  have  acquitted 
his  conscience  by  writing  it :  lie  would  then  quit  literature 
and  seek  other  work.  The  alternative,  indeed,  did  not 
seem  to  be  left  to  him — literature  as  a  profession,  fol- 
lowed with  a  sacred  sense  of  responsibility  (and  without 
such  a  sense  he  could  have  nothing  to  do  with  it),  refused 
a  living  to  himself  and  his  wife.  For  her  sake  as  well  as 
his  own,  he  nmst  try  something  else.  He  was  in  no  hurry 
to  choose.  His  plan,  so  far  as  he  could  form  one,  was 
that,  as  soon  as  the  book  was  published,  his  wife  should 
return  for  a  while  to  her  mother.  He,  like  his  own 
Teufelsdrockh,  would  take  staff  in  hand,  travel  on  foot 
about  the  world  like  a  mediaeval  monk,  look  about  liim. 


Future  Prospects.  71 

and  then  decide.  Ten  years  before,  he  had  formed  large 
hopes  of  what  he  might  do  and  become  as  a  man  of  let- 
ters. He  concluded  now  that  he  had  failed,  and  the  lan- 
guage in  which  he  wrote  about  it  is  extremely  manly. 

Journal. 

October  23. — ^Nothing  noted  here  for  a  long  time.  It  has  grown 
profitless,  wearisome,  to  write  or  speak  of  one  so  sick,  forlorn  as 
myself.  Cap.  3  (Girondins)  finished  about  a  week  ago.  Totally 
worthless,  according  to  my  feeling  of  it.  I  persist,  nevertheless. 
'Diamond  Necklace*  to  be  printed  in  'Fraser.*  Sitting  for  my 
pictui-e  to  a  man  named  Lewis,  who  begged  it,  *  that  it  might  do 
him  good.'  Jane  insisted.  I  at  length  assented.  Cul  bono? 
Empty  as  I  am  in  purse  and  in  hope,  what  steads  the  oil  shadow 
of  me  in  these  circumstances  ?  Rather  let  such  a  man  be  alto- 
gether sui)i)ressed. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea:  October  29. 

Our  life  is  all  hanging  in  the  wind — for  me,  however,  against 
the  next  spring  I  have  it  all  so  cunningly  arranged  that,  as  it  were, 
neither  ill  luck  nor  good  luck  can  be  other  than  welcome  to  me. 
This  is  really  tnie  and  very  curious.  Such  an  infinitude  of  differ- 
ent annoyances  and  menaces  come  pressing  on  me  from  all  points 
of  the  compass,  that  I  merely  fortify  my  own  chest  and  rib  work, 
and  say,  '  Messrs.  the  Annoyances,  do,  if  you  j^lease,  make  out 
the  result  among  yourselves  ;  my  ribs  with  heaven's  help  will  not 
yield,  and  I  shall  cheerfully  be  ready  to  move  whichever  way  the 
curi'ent  goes.'  Here,  witli  only  literature  for  shelter,  there  is,  I 
think,  no  continuance.  Better  to  take  a  stick  in  your  hand,  and 
roam  the  earth  Teufelsdrockhish  ;  you  will  get  at  least  a  stomach 
to  eat  Ijread— even  that  denied  me  here.  Es  icoUte  kein  Hund  so 
leben  (no  dog  would  lead  such  a  life).  Nor  will  I.  The  only  mle 
is  silence,  uttermost  composure,  and  open  eyes.  The  beggarly 
economical  part  of  this  existence  on  earth  seems  to  me  the  more 
beggarly  the  longer  I  look  at  it ;  the  existence  itself  the  more 
tragical,  sublime.  Not  a  hair  of  our  heads  but  was  given  to  us  by 
a  God. 

My  chief  pity  in  general,  iiv  these  circumstances  of  mine,  is  for 
Jane.  She  hoped  much  of  me  ;  had  great  faith  in  me  ;  and  has 
endured  much  beside  me,  not  murmuring  at  it.    I  feel  as  if  I  had 


72  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

to  swim  both  for  her  deliverance  and  my  own.     Better  health  will 
be  granted  me  ;  better  days  for  us  both. 

It  is  my  fixed  hope  at  present  either  to  go  to  Scotland  or  to 
Italy  next  summer,  stick  in  hand.  If  any  offer  occur  to  detain  me 
here,  it  shall  be  well ;  if  none,  it  shall  be  almost  better.  '  This  is 
what  I  meant  above  by  being  balanced  amid  annoyances  and  men- 
aces. Therefore  be  of  good  cheer,  my  brave  brother.  The  world 
shall  not  beat  us,  much  as  it  may  try.  We  will  make  a  wrestle  or 
two  first  at  any  rate.  Thou  see'st  I  am  to  have  done  with  this 
sorrowful  enterprise  of  a  book,  with  France  and  Eevolutions  for 
evermore.  Then  I  take  stick  in  hand,  silently  go  to  comj)ose  my 
body  and  soul  a  little,  and  so  take  the  world  on  the  other  side.  I 
feel  strong  yet ;  as  if  I  had  years  of  strength  in  me.  London  has 
been  like  a  course  of  mercury  to  body  and  mind  ;  hard  enough, 
but  not  unmedicative.  We  will  not  complain  of  London,  not  fear 
it,  not  hope  from  it ;  let  it  go  its  way,  we  going  ours.  If  thou 
prosper  at  Eome,  I  may  come  to  thee.  If  not,  why  then  come 
thou  hither.     It  shall  be  good  either  way. 

So  the  year  wore  out,  and  in  this  humour  the  '  History 
of  the  French  He  volution  '  was  finished.  The  last  sen- 
tence was  written  on  tlie  12tli  of  January,  1837,  on  a 
damp  evening,  just  as  light  w^as  failing.'  Carlyle  gave 
the  MS.  to  his  wife  to  read,  and  went  out  to  w^alk.  Be- 
fore leaving  the  house  he  said  to  her :  '  I  know  not 
whether  this  book  is  worth  anything,  nor  what  the  world 
will  do  with  it,  or  misdo,  or  entirely  forbear  to  do,  as  is 
likeliest ;  but  this  I  could  tell  the  world :  You  have  not 
had  for  a  hundred  years  any  book  that  comes  more  direct 
and  flamingly  from  the  heart  of  a  living  man.  Do  what 
you  like  -wdth  it,  you — .'  Five  days  later  he  announced 
the  event  to  Sterling,  w4io  was  spending  the  winter  at 
Bordeaux. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chelsea  :  January  17,  1837. 
Five  days  ago  I  finished  about  ten  o'clock  at  night,  and  was 
ready  both  to  weep  and  pray,  but  did  not  do  either,  at  least  not 

i  So  Carlyle  said  later  ;  but  in  the  letter  to  Sterling  he  says  ten  o'clock  at 
night.     Perhaps  he  added  a  word  or  two. 


" Frendi  Ilevdlutioii'*  Finished.  73 

visibly  or  audibly.  The  bookseller  lias  it,  and  the  printer  has  it ; 
I  expect  the  first  sheet  to-morrow.  In  not  many  more  weeks  I 
can  hoi>e  to  wash  my  hands  of  it  for  ever  and  a  day.  It  is  a  thing 
disgusting  to  me  by  the  faults  of  it :  the  merits  of  which — for  it 
is  not  without  merit — will  not  be  seen  for  a  long  time.  It  is  a 
wild  savage  book,  itself  a  kind  of  French  Revolution,  wliich  2)er- 
haps,  if  Providence  have  so  ordered,  the  world  had  better  not 
accept  when  offered  it.  With  all  my  heai-t.  What  I  do  know  of 
it  is  that  it  has  come  hot  out  of  my  own  soul,  born  in  blackness, 
whirlwind,  and  sorrow ;  that  no  man  for  a  long  while  has  stood, 
speaking  so  completely  alone,  under  the  eternal  azure  in  the  char- 
acter of  man  only,  or  is  likely  for  a  long  wliile  so  to  stand  :  finally, 
that  it  has  gone  as  near  to  choking  the  life  out  of  me  as  any  task 
I  should  like  to  undertake  for  some  years  to  come,  which  also  is 
an  immense  comfort,  indeed  the  greatest  of  all. 

The  Mason's  ways  are 
A  type  of  existence, 
And  his  persistence 
Is  as  the  days  are 
Of  men  in  this  world. 

The  future  hides  in  it 
Gladness  and  sorrow ; 
We  press  still  thorough, 
Naught  that  abides  in  it 
Daunting  us,  onward. 

And  solemn  before  us 
Veiled  the  dark  Portal, 
Goal  of  all  Mortals  ; 
St  irs  silent  rest  o'er  us, 
Graves  under  us  silent. 

While  earnest  thou  gazest 
Comes  boding  of  terror, 
Comes  phantasm  and  error, 
Perplexes  the  bravest 
With  doubt  and  misgiving. 

But  heard  are  the  voices, 
Heard  are  the  sage's, 
The  world's,  and  the  age's. 
Choose  well :  your  choice  is 
Brief  and  yet  endless. 


74  CadyWs  Life  'in  London, 

Here  eyes  do  regard  you 
In  eternity's  stillness, 
Here  is  all  fulness, 
Ye  brave  to  reward  you. 
Work  and  despair  not.* 

Is  not  that  a  piece  of  psalmody  ?  It  seems  to  me  like  a  piece  of 
marcliing  music  to  the  great  brave  Teutonic  kindred  as  they  march 
through  the  waste  of  time — that  section  of  eternity  they  were  ap- 
pointed for.  Ohen  die  Sterne  und  unten  die  Grdber,  <&c.  Let  us  all 
sing  it  and  march  on  cheerful  of  heart.  'We  bid  you  to  hope.' ' 
So  say  the  voices,  do  they  not  ? 

This  poem  of  Goethe's  was  on  Carlyle's  lips  to  the  last 
days  of  his  life.  When  very  near  the  end  he  quoted  the 
last  lines  of  it  to  me  when  speaking  of  what  might  lie  be- 
yond,    '  We  bid  you  to  hope.' 

1  Goethe's  song — 

'  Die  Zukunf  t  decket 
Schmerzen  und  Gliick.' 

Carlyle  gives  the  original  in  writing  to  Sterling.     I  take  Carlyle's  own  trans- 
lation from  '  Past  and  Present. ' 

2  The  literal  translation  of  the  last  line, 

'  Wir  heissen  euch  hoffen.* 


I 


CHAPTEK  IV. 
A.D.  1837.    ^T.  42. 

Character  of  Carlyle's  writings— The  *  French  Revolution'  as  a 
work  of  art— Political  neutrality — Effect  of  the  book  on  Car- 
lyle's position — Proposed  lectures — Public  speaking — Delivery 
of  the  first  course — Success,  moral  and  financial — End  of  money 
difficulties — Letter  to  Sterling — Exhaustion — Retreat  to  Scot- 
land. 

I  HAVE  been  thus  particular  in  describing  the  conditions 
under  which  the  '  History  of  tlie  French  Revolution'  was 
composed,  because  this  book  gave  Carlyle  at  a  single  step 
his  unique  position  as  an  English  man  of  letters,  and  be- 
cause it  is  in  many  respects  the  most  perfect  of  all  his 
writings.  In  his  other  wo)*ks  the  sense  of  form  is  defec- 
tive. He  throws  out  brilliant  detached  pictures,  and  large 
masses  of  thought,  each  in  itself  inimitably  clear.  There 
is  everywhere  a  unity  of  purpose,  with  powerful  final  effects. 
But  events  are  not  left  to  tell  their  own  story.  He  appears 
continually  in  his  own  person,  instructing,  commenting, 
informing  the  reader  at  every  step  of  his  own  opinion. 
His  method  of  composition  is  so  original  that  it  cannot  be 
tried  by  common  rules.  The  want  of  art  is  even  useful 
for  the  purposes  which  he  has  generally  in  view ;  but  it 
interferes  with  the  simplicity  of  a  genuine  historical  nar- 
rative. The  '  French  Revolution  '  is  not  open  to  this  ob- 
jection. It  stands  alone  in  artistic  regularity  and  com- 
pleteness. It  is  a  prose  poem  with  a  distinct  beginning,  a 
middle,  an  end.  It  opens  with  the  crash  of  a  corrupt  sys- 
tem, and  a  dream  of  liberty  which  was  to  bring  with  it  a 


76  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

reign  of  peace  and  happiness  and  universal  love.  It  pur- 
sues its  way  through  the  failure  of  visionary  hopes  into 
I'egicide  and  terror,  and  the  regeneration  of  mankind  by 
the  guillotine.  It  has  been  called  an  ejpic.  It  is  rather  an 
^scliylean  drama  composed  of  facts  literally  true,  in  which 
the  Furies  are  seen  once  more  walking  on  this  pi'osaic 
earth  and  shaking  their  serpent  hair. 

The  form  is  quite  peculiar,  unlike  that  of  any  history 
ever  written  before,  or  probably  to  be  written  again.  [Ro 
one  can  imitate  Cai-lyle  who  does  not  sincerely  feel  as  Car- 
lyle  felt.  J^ut  it  is  complete  in  itself.  The  story  takes 
shape  as  it  grows,  a  definite  organic  creation,  wdth  no  dead 
or  needless  matter  anywhere  disfiguring  or  adhering  to  it, 
as  if  the  metal  had  been  smelted  in  a  furnace  seven  times 
heated,  till  every  particle  of  dross  had  been  burnt  away. 
As  in  all  living  things,  there  is  the  central  idea,  the  ani- 
mating principle  round  which  the  matter  gathers  and  de- 
velopes  into  shape.  Carlyle  was  writing  what  he  believed 
would  be  his  last  word  to  his  countrymen.  He  was  not  look- 
ing forward  to  fame  or  fortune,  or  to  making  a  position 
for  himself  in  the  world.  He  belonged  to  no  political 
party,  and  was  engaged  in  the  defence  of  no  theory  or  in- 
terest. For  many  years  he  had  been  studying  painfully 
the  mystery  of  human  life,  wholly  and  solely  that  he 
might  arrive  at  some  kind  of  truth  about  it  and  understand 
his  own  duty.  He  had  no  belief  in  the  virtue  of  special 
'Constitutions.'  He  was  neither  Tory,  nor  Whig,  nor 
lladical,  nor  Socialist,  nor  any  other  '  ist.'  He  had  stripped 
himself  of  '  Formulas '  '  as  a  J^essus  shirt,'  and  flung  them 
fiercely  away  from  him,  finding  '  Formulas'  in  these  days  to 
be  mostly  '  lies  agreed  to  be  believed.'  In  the  record  of  God's 
law,  as  he  had  been  able  to  read  it,  he  had  found  no  com- 
mendation of  '  symbols  of  faith,'  of  church  organisation,  or 
methods  of  government.  He  wrote,  as  he  said  to  Sterling, 
'  in  the  character  of  a  man '  only  ;  and  of  a  man  without 


Tlve  *' French  Revolution^  77 

earthly  objects,  without  earthly  prospects,  who  had  been 
sternly  handled  by  fate  and  circumstances,  and  was  left  alone 
with  the  elements,  as  Prometheus  on  the  rock  of  Caucasus. 
Struggling  thus  in  pain  and  sorrow,  he  desired  to  tell  the 
modern  world  that,  destitute  as  it  and  its  affairs  appeared 
to  be  of  Divine  guidance,  God  or  justice  was  still  in  the. 
middle  of  it,  sternly  inexorable  as  ever;  that  modern  na- 
tions were  as  entirely  governed  by  God's  law  as  the  Israel- 
ites had  been  in  Palestine — laws  self-acting  and  inflicting 
their  own  penalties,  if  man  neglected  or  defied  them.  And 
these  laws  were  substantially  the  same  as  those  on  the 
Tables  delivered  in  thunder  on  Mount  Sinai.  You  shall 
reverence  your  Almighty  Maker.  You  shall  speak  truth. 
You  shall  do  justice  to  your  fellow-man.  If  you  set  truth 
aside  for  conventional  and  convenient  lies;  if  you  prefer 
your  own  pleasure,  your  own  will,  your  own  ambition,  to 
purity  and  manliness  and  justice,  and  submission  to  your 
Maker's  commands,  then  are  whirlwinds  still  provided  in 
the  constitution  of  things  which  will  blow  you  to  atoms. 
Philistines,  Assyrians,  Babylonians,  were  the  whips  which 
were  provided  for  the  Israelites.  Germans  and  Huns 
swept  away  the  Roman  sensualists.  Modern  society, 
though  out  of  fear  of  barbarian  conquerors,  breeds  in  its 
own  heart  the  instruments  of  its  punishment.  The  hungry 
and  injured  millions  will  rise  up  and  bring  to  justice  their 
guilty  rulers,  themselves  little  better  than  those  whom  they 
throw  down,  themselves  powerless  to  rebuild  out  of  the 
ruins  any  abiding  city  ;  but  powerful  to  destroy,  powerful 
to  dash  in  pieces  the  corrupt  institutions  which  have  been 
the  shelter  and  the  instrument  of  oppression. 

And  Carlyle  heliemd  this — believed  it  singly  and  simply 
as  Isaiah  believed  it,  not  as  a  mode  of  speech  to  be  used 
in  pulpits  by  eloquent  preachers,  but  as  actual  literal  fact, 
as  a  real  account  of  the  true  living  relations  between  mau 
and  his  Maker.     The  established  forms,  ci-eeds,  liturgies, 


78  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

articles  of  faith,  were  but  as  the  shell  round  the  kernel. 
The  shell  in  these  days  of  ours  had  rotted  away,  and  men 
supposed  that,  because  the  shell  was  gone,  the  entire  con- 
ception had  been  but  a  dream.  It  was  no  dream.  The 
kernel  could  not  rot.  It  was  the  vital  force  by  whicli 
human  existence  in  this  planet  was  controlled,  and  would 
be  controlled  to  the  end. 

In  this  conviction  he  wrote  his  spectral  '  History  of  the 
French  Revolution.'  Spectral,  for  the  actors  in  it  appear 
without  their  earthly  clothes :  men  and  women  in  their 
natural  characters,  but  as  in  some  vast  phantasmagoria, 
.with  the  supernatural  shining  through  them,  working  in 
fancy  their  own  wills  or  their  own  imagination  ;  in  reality, 
the  mere  instruments  of  a  superior  power,  infernal  or  di- 
vine, whose  awful  presence  is  felt  while  it  is  unseen. 

To  give  form  to  his  conception,  Carlyle  possessed  all 
the  qualities  of  a  supreme  dramatic  poet,  except  command 
of  metre.  He  has  indeed  a  metre,  or  rather  a  melody,  of 
his  own.  The  style  which  troubled  others,  and  troubled 
himself  when  he  thought  about  it,  was  perhaps  the  best 
possible  to  convey  thoughts  whicli  were  often  like  the 
spurting  of  volcanic  fire ;  but  it  was  inharmonious,  rough- 
liewn,  and  savage.  It  may  be  said,  too,  that  he  had  no 
'  invention.'  But  he  refused  to  allow  that  any  real  poet 
had  ever  '  invented.'  The  poet  had  to  represent,  truths, 
not  lies^  or  the  polite  form  of  lies  called  fiction.  Homei-, 
Dante,  believed  themselves  to  be  describing  real  persons 
and  real  things.  Carlyle  '  created '  nothing  ;  but  with  a 
real  subject  before  him  he  was  the  greatest  of  historical 
painters."  He  took  all  pains  first  to  obtain  an  authentic 
account  of  the  facts.  Then,  with  a  few  sharp  lines,  he 
could  describe  face,  figure,  character,  actiori,  with  a  com- 
plete insight  never  rivalled  except  by  Tacitus,  and  with  a 
i3ertain  sympathy,  a  perennial  fiashing  of  humour,  of  which 
Tacitus  has  none.     He  produces  a  gallery  of  human  por- 


The  ''French  Revolution^  79 

traits  each  so  distinctly  drawn,  that  whenever  studied  it 
can  never  be  forgotten,  lie  possessed  besides  another 
quality,  the  rarest  of  all,  and  the  most  precious,  an  inflex- 
ible love  of  truth.  It  was  first  a  moral  principle  with  him  ; 
but  he  had  also  an  intellectual  curiosity  to  know  every- 
thing exactly  as  it  was.  Independently  Of  moral  objections 
to  lies,  Oarlyle  always  held  that  the  fact,  if  you  knew  it, 
was  more  interesting  than  the  most  picturesque  of  fictions, 
and  thus  his  histoncal  workmanship  is  sound  to  the  core. 
He  spared  himself  no  trouble  in  investigating;  and  all 
his  effort  was  to  delineate  accurately  what  he  had  found. 
Dig  w^here  yon  will  in  Carlyle's  writings,  3^ou  never  come 
to  water.  Politicians  have  complained  that  Carlyle  shows 
no  insight  into  constitutional  principles,  that  he  writes  as 
if  he  were  contemptuous  of  them  or  indifferent  to  them. 
Revolutionists  have  complained  of  his  scorn  of  Robes- 
pierre, and  of  his  tenderness  to  Marie  Antoinette.  Cath- 
olics find  Holy  Church  spoken  of  without  sufficient  respect, 
and  Tories  find  kings  and  nobles  stripped  of  their  fine 
clothes  and  treated  as  vulgar  clay.  But  Constitutions  had 
no  place  in  Carlyle's  Decalogue.  He  did  not  find  it 
written  there  that  one  form  of  government  is  in  itself 
better  than  another.     He  held  with  Pope  : — 

For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest ; 
Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best. 

His  sympathies  were  with  purity,  justice,  truthfulness, 
manly  courage,  on  whichever  side  he  found  them.  His 
scorn  was  for  personal  cowardice,  or  cant,  or  hollow  places 
of  any  kind  in  the  character  of  men  ;  and  when  nations 
are  split  into  parties,  wisdom  or  folly,  virtue  or  vice,  is 
not  the  exclusive  property  of  one  or  the  other. 

A  book  written  from  such  a  point  of  view  had  no  '  pub- 
lic' prepared  for  it.  When  it  appeared,  partisans  on  both 
sides  were  offended  ;  and  to  the  reading  multitude  who 


80  Carlyle's  L'ife  in  London. 

wish  merely  to  be  amused  without  the  trouble  of  thinking, 
it  had  no  attraction  till  they  learned  its  merits  from  others. 
But  to  the  chosen  few,  to  those  who  had  eyes  of  their  own 
to  see  with,  and  manliness  enough  to  recognise  when  a  \\y- 
ing  man  was  speaking  to  them,  to  those  who  had  real  in- 
tellect, and  could  therefore  acknowledge  intellect  and 
welcome  it  wliether  they  agreed  or  not  with  the  writer's 
opinions,  the  high  quality  of  the  '  French  Revolution ' 
became  apparent  instantly,  and  Carlyle  was  at  once  looked 
up  to,  by  some  who  themselves  were  looked  np  to  by  the 
world,  as  a  man  of  extraordinary  gifts ;  perhaps  as  the 
highest  among  them  all.  Dickens  carried  a  copy  of  it 
with  him  wherever  he  went.  Southey  read  it  six  times 
over.  Thackeray  reviewed  it  enthusiastically.  Even  Jef- 
frey generously  admitted  that  Carlyle  had  succeeded  upon 
lines  on  which  he  had  himself  foretold  inevitable  failure. 
The  orthodox  political  philosophers,  Macaulay,  Hallam, 
Brougham,  though  they  perceived  that  Carlyle's  views 
were  the  condemnation  of  their  own,  though  they  felt  in- 
stinctively that  he  was  their  most  dangerous  enemy,  yet 
could  not  any  longer  despise  him.  They  with  the  rest 
were  obliged  to  admit  that  there  had  arisen  a  new  star,  of 
baleful  perhaps  and  ominous  aspect,  but  a  star  of  the  first 
magnitude  in  English  literature. 

But  six  months  had  still  to  pass  before  the  book  could 
be  published,  and  I  am  anticipating.  Carlyle  had  been  so 
long  inured  to  disappointment,  that  he  expected  nothing 
from  the  world  but  continued  indifference.  His  only 
anxiety  was  to  be  done  with  the  thing,  and  it  had  still  to 
be  printed  and  corrected.  The  economical  crisis  had  been 
postponed.  Life  could  be  protracted  at  Cheyne  Kow  for 
another  six  months  on  the  proceeds  of  '  Mirabeau '  and 
the  '  Diamond  Xecklace,'  and  he  wrote  in  fair  spirits  to 
his  mother,  enclosing  a  printed  page  from  a  proof  sheet. 


The  *•  French  Revolution.^  81 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea :  Jan.  23,  1837. 

The  book  is  actually  done  ;  all  written  to  the  last  line  ;  and  now, 
after  much  higgling  and  maffling,  the  printers  have  got  fairly  afloat, 
and  we  are  to  go  on  with  the  wind  and  the  sea.  There  is  still  a 
good  deal  of  constant  business  for  me  in  correcting  the  press — as 
much  as  I  can  do,  we  will  hope,  for  they  are  to  print  with  all  the 
rapidity  they  are  capable  of ;  and  I  make  a  good  many  improve- 
ments as  we  go  on,  especially  in  the  first  volume.  It  will  be  six 
weeks  yet,  and  then  the  book  will  be  about  ready.  Take  this 
scrap  of  print  meanwhile  as  a  good  omen,  like  the  leaf  that  Noah's 
dove  brought  in  the  bill  of  it.  I  have  had  a  veiy  sore  wi'estle  for 
two  years  and  a  half,  but  it  is  over,  you  see,  and  the  thing  is  there. 
I  finished  on  Friday  gone  a  week,  really  with  a  feeling  of  thankful- 
ness, of  icaeness  and  great  gladness.  I  could  have  grat,  but  did 
not.  Jane  treated  me  to  a  bread-pudding  next  day,  which  bread- 
pudding  I  consumed  with  an  appetite  got  by  walking  far  and  wide, 
I  dare  say  about  twenty  miles  over  this  *  large  and  populous  city.' 
My  health  is  really  better  than  anybody  could  expect.  The  foun- 
dations of  this  lean  frame  of  mine  must  be  as  tough  as  wire.  If  I 
were  rested  a  little,  I  shall  forget  the  whole  thing,  and  have  a  de- 
gree of  freedom  and  a  lightness  of  heart  unknown  to  me  for  a  long 
while. 

As  to  the  reception  the  book  is  like  to  meet  with,  I  judge  that 
there  will  be  ten  enemies  of  it  for  one  friend  ;  but  also  that  it  will 
find  friends  by-and-by ;  in  fine,  that,  as  brave  old  Johnson  said, 
*  useful  diligence  will  at  last  prevail.'  It  is  not  altogether  a  bad 
book.  For  one  thing  I  consider  it  to  be  the  sincerest  book  this 
nation  has  got  ofi'ered  to  it  for  a  good  few  years,  or  is  like  to  get 
for  a  good  few.  And  so  I  say  to  them  :  '  Good  Chiistian  people, 
there  it  is.  Shriek  over  it,  since  ye  will  not  shout  over  it.  Tram- 
ple it  and  kick  it,  and  use  it  all  ways  ye  judge  best.  If  ye  can  kill 
it  and  extinguish  it,  then  in  God's  name  do.  If  ye  cannot,  why 
then  ye  will  not.  My  share  in  it  is  done.'  That  is  the  thing  I 
propose  to  say  within  my  own  mind.  One  infallible  truth,  pre- 
cious for  us  all,  is  that  I  am  shot  of  it,  and  you  are  shot  of  it. 

Printing  a  book  is  like  varnishing  a  picture.     Faults 
and  merits  both  become  more  conspicuous.     Carlyle,  who 
was  hard  to  please  with  his  own   work,  and  had  called  it 
Vol.  ni;— tf 


82  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

worth  nothing  while  in  progress,  found  it  in  the  proofs 
better  than  he  expected. 

It  is  a  book  (he  said  of  it  again)  that  makes  no  complaint  about 
itself,  but  steps  out  in  a  quite  peaceable  manner,  hoping  nothing, 
fearing  nothing.  Indeed  I  never  knew,  till  looking  at  it  this 
second  time,  what  a  burly  torque  of  a  thing  it  was  :  a  perfect  oak 
clog,  which  all  the  hammers  in  the  world  will  make  no  impression 
on.  Of  human  things  it  is  j^erhaps  likest  a  kind  of  civilised  An- 
drew Bishop,  the  old  crier  of  ballads  ;  the  same  invincible  breadth 
of  body,  a  shaggy  smile  on  its  face,  and  a  depth  of  voice  equal  to 
that  of  Andrew.  Many  a  man  will  find  it  a  hard  nut  to  crack ;  but 
it  is  they  that  will  have  to  crack  it,  not  I  any  more. 

He  made  no  foul  copy  of  this  or  of  anything  that  he 
wrote  in  these  early  days.  The  sentences  completed  them- 
selves in  his  head  before  he  threw  them  upon  paper,  and 
only  verbal  alterations  were  afterwards  necessary  ;  but  he 
omitted  many  things  in  his  proof  sheets,  redivided  his 
books  and  chapters,  and  sharpened  the  lights  and  shadows. 

To  John  Carlyle,  Rome. 

Chelsea:  Feb.  17,  1837. 
We  are  got  near  the  hot  work  of  the  taking  of  the  Bastille.  I 
call  each  chapter  that  was,  a  book,  and  have  subdivided  all  these 
into  chapters.  The  longest  list  'of  chapters  as  yet  is  ten,  the  short- 
est/b?<r.  Each  chapter  has  a  brief  (briefest)  title,  generally  with 
something  of  the  epigrammatic  character  in  it.  Each  book,  too, 
has  a  title,  and  each  volume.  The  list  of  these  will  be  the  table 
of  contents,  without  other, index  or  aj)pendage.  The  notes  are 
merely  references.  I  do  not  add  anything  beyond  the  text.  On 
the  other  hand  I  am  really  conscientious  in  cutting  out.  You  will 
be  delighted  to  miss  not  a  few  of  your  old  friends.  I  have  divided 
many  a  paragraph,  many  a  sentence ;  and  so  with  chaptering  to.o ; 
have  let  in  a  great  deal  of  daylight  (of  blank,  at  least)  into  it ;  and 
on  the  whole  it  seems  to  me  incredibly  improved.  I  find  on  a 
general  view  that  the  book  is  one  of  the  savagest  written  for  several 
centuries.  It  is  a  book  wTitten  by  a  loild  man,  a  man  disunited 
from  the  fellowship  of  the  world  he  lives  in,  looking  king  and  beg- 
gar in  the  face  with  an  indifference  of  brotherhood  and  an  indif- 
ference of  contempt.     That  is  really  very  extraordinary  in  a  respect- 


Proposed  Lectures.  83 

able  coiuitry.  The  critic  of  a  respectable  natnre  Cannot  but  be 
loud,  falls  er  nichi  schweif/t  (unless  he  says  nothing),  which  really  I 
shall  be  well  content  that  he  do.  But  I  think  he  will  not.  In 
that  case  I  will  grant  him  fi^e  scope.  There  is  no  word  in  his 
belly  harder  than  the  words  it  utters,  by  implication  or  directly, 
about  him  and  his  ...  A  wild  man — pray  God  it  be  a  man, 
an(f  then  buff  away,  smite  and  spare  not.  The  thing  you  can  kill, 
I  say  always,  deserves  not  to  live.  On  the  whole  I  think  it  is  not 
Naught,  and  have  it  there  as  a  thing  done  by  me.  The  critics  are 
welcome  to  lay  on.  There  is  a  kind  of  Orson  life  in  it  which  they 
will  not  kill. 

Meantime  tlie  economic  problem,  though  postponed, 
was  still  unsolved.  The  book  was  finished,  but  no  money 
could  be  expected  from  it,  at  least  for  a  considerable 
time ;  and,  unless  something  could  be  done,  it  was  likely 
that  London,  and  perhaps  England,  would  lose  Carlyle 
just  at  the  moment  when  they  were  learning  the  nature  of 
the  man  to  whom  they  were  refusing  ordinary  mainte- 
nance. His  circumstances  were  no  secret.  His  friends 
were  doubtless  aware  tha<^^  he  had  been  invited  to  lecture 
in  America.  A  large  number  of  persons,  more  or  less 
influential,  knew  vaguely  that  he  Was  a  remarkable  man, 
and  some  of  them  cast  about  for  means  to  prevent  such  a 
scandal.  One  of  the  most  anxious  and  active,  be  it 
recorded  to  her  honour,  was  Harriet  Martineau.  This 
lady  had  introduced  herself  into  Cheyne  Row  in  the  pre- 
ceding November,  as  Carlyle  had  informed  his  mother. 

Two  or  three  days  ago  (he  wrote)  there  came  to  call  on  us  a 
Miss  Martineau,  whom  you  have  perhaps  often  heard  of  in  the 
•Examiner."  A  hideous  portrait  was  given  of  her  in'  'Fraser' 
one  month.  She  is  a  notable  litei-ary  woman  of  her  day,  has  been 
travelling  in  America  these  two  years,  and  is  now  come  home  to 
write  a  book  about  it. "  She  pleased  us  far  beyond  expectation. 
She  is  veiy  intelligent-looking,  really  of  pleasant  countenance, 
was  full  of  talk,  though  unhappily  deaf  almost  as  a  post,  so  that 

«  The  '  Examiner '  was  sent  r^ularly  to  Carlyle,  and  by  hun  forwarded  to 

Scotsbrig. 


84  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

you  have  to  speak  to  her  through  an  ear-tmmpet.  She  must  be 
some  five-and-thirty.  As  she  professes  very  'favourable  senti- 
ments' towards  this  side  of  the  street,  I  mean  to  cultivate  the 
acquaintance  a  little. 

To  Miss  Martinean,  to  Miss  Wilson,  another  accom- 
plished ladj  friend,  and  to  several  more,  it  occurred  that  if 
Carljle  could  be  wanted  to  lecture  in  Boston,  he  might 
equally  well  lecture  in  London.  If  he  could  speak  as  well 
in  public  as  he  could  talk  in  private,  he  could  not  fail  of 
success  ;  and  money,  a  little,  but  enough,  might  be  realised 
in  this  way.  The  Royal  Institution  was  lirst  thought  of, 
but  the  pay  at  the  Royal  Institution  was  small,  and  the 
list,  besides,  was  full  for  the  year.  The  bold  ladies  turned 
their  disappointment  to  better  advantage.  Carlyle  gave  a 
grumbling  consent.  They  canvassed  their  acquaintance. 
They  found  two  hundred  persons  ready  each  to  subscribe 
a  guinea  to  hear  a  course  of  lectures  from  him  in  a  room 
engaged  for  himself  only.  The  '  French  Revolution '  was 
not  to  appear  till  the  summer.  That  so  many  lords  and 
ladies  and  other  notabilities  should  have  given  their 
names  for  such  a  purpose  implies  that  Carlyle's  earlier 
writings  had  already  made  an  impression.  London  society 
loves  novelties,  but  it  expects  that  the  novelties  shall  be 
entertaining,  and  does  not  go  into  a  thing  of  this  kind  en- 
tirely on  hazard.  Carlyle  was  spared  all  trouble.  All 
tliat  he  had  to  do  was  to  prepare  something  to  say  ;  and 
Willis's  Rooms  were  engaged  for  him,  the  lectures  to  be- 
gin on  May  1.  He  shuddered,  for  he  hated  display,  but 
he  felt  that  he  must  not  reject  an  opening  so  opportunely 
made  for  him.  He  had  no  leisure  for  any  special  study, 
but  he  was  full  of  knowledge  of  a  thousand  kinds.  He 
chose  the  subject  which  came  most  conveniently  for  him, 
since  he  had  worked  so  hard  upon  it  at  Craigenputtock — 
German  literature.  There  were  to  be  six  lectures  in  all. 
A  prospectus  was  drawn  up  and  printed,  intimating  that 


Notice  of  Lectures.  85 

on  shell  and  such  days  Thomas  Carlyle  would  deliver 
addresses — 

1.  On  the  Teutonic  People,  the  German  Language, 
Ulfilas,  the  Northern  Immigration,  and  the  Niebelungen 
Lied. 

2.  On  the  Minnesinger,  Tauler,  Reineke  Fuchs,  the 
Legend 'of  Faust,  the  Eeformation,  Luther,  Ulrich  von 
Hutten. 

3.  On  the  Master  Singers,  Ilans  Sachs,  Jacob  Boh  me, 
Decay  of  German  Literature,  Anton  Ulrich  Duke  of 
Brunswick,  Opitz,  Leibnitz. 

4.  On  the  Resuscitation  of  German  Literature,  Lessing, 
Klopstock,  Gellert,  Lavater,  Efflorescence  of  German  Litera- 
ture, Werther,  Goetz. 

5.  On  the  Chai-acteristics  of  New-German  Literature, 
Growth  and  Decay  of  Opinion,  Faust,  Philosophy,  Kant, 
Fichte,  Schelling,  Art  and  Belief,  Goethe. 

6.  On  the  Drama,   Schiller :  Pseudo-Drama,   Klinger, 
Kotzebue,  Werner:    Romance,   Tieck,  Novalis,   Pseudo- 
Romance,  Hoffmann :  Poetry  and  German  Literature,  Her- . 
der,  Wieland,  the  Schlegels,  Jean  Paul ;  Results,  Anticipa- 
tions. 

A  copious  bill  of  fare  !  A  more  experienced  hand  would 
have  spread  the  subjects  of  any  one  of.  these  lectures  into 
the  necessary  six,  watering  them  duly  to  the  palate  of 
fashionable  audiences.  But  Carlyle,  if  he  undertook  any- 
thing, chose  to  do  it  in  a  way  that  he  could  think  of  with- 
out shame.  He  was  sulky  and  even  alarmed,  for  he  did 
not  intend  to  read.  He  had  undertaken  to  speak^  and 
speak  he  would,  or  else  fail  altogether. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea:  March  31. 
The  grand  news  of  all.     I  am  to  lecture  on  German  literature  in 
May  next.     Ach  Oott  !    It  makes  my  heart  tremble  when  I  think 
of  it ;  but  it  is  to  be  done.     The  Royal  Institution  having  failed, 


86  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

the  Wilsons  (it  was  Miss  Wilson,  mainly)  determined  that  we 
would  get  an  audience  of  our  own,  and  a  Willis's  Rooms  of  our 
own.  So  they  have  tickets  printed,  and  a  book  open  at  Saunders 
and  Ottley's  ;  and  the  Marchioness  of  Lansdowne  and  honourable 
women  have  their  names  down,  and  prospectuses  circulate  ;  and  on 
the  whole,  on  Monday,  May  1,  from  3  to  4  o'clock,  and  five  lectures 
after  that,  two  each  week,  I  am  to  commence  and  speak.  Heaven 
knows  what  I  shall  say.  There  will  not,  with  those  dilatory  print- 
ers, be  a  single  moment  devotable  rightly  to  preparation.  I  feel 
as  if  I  were  to  be  flung  overboard  and  bid  swim  or  drown.  On  the 
whole,  however,  it  is  best.  I  have  long  wished  to  try  that  thing, 
and  now  it  is  to  be  tried.  Nay,  I  am  sure  farther  I  can  succeed  in 
it  with  a  fair  chance.  Courage !  Swim  or  drown.  .  .  .  This 
year  we  are  in  will  probably  settle  something  as  to  me.  I  seem  as 
if  I  were  going  to  make  what  a  sei-vant  of  ours  called  '  an  explosure 
in  the  Kent  Road,  ma'am. '  I  am  driven  not  to  care  two  straws 
whether  or  not.  Fortune  has  had  me  aux  abois  for  a  good  while, 
and  I  have  looked  defiance  in  the  teeth  of  her.  The  longer  I  live, 
fame  seems  to  me  a  more  wretched  *  Kimmera,'  really  and  truly  a 
thing  to  be  shied  of  if  it  came.  I  think  of  Rousseau's  case  some- 
times, and  pray  God  I  might  be  enabled  to  break  whinstone  rather, 
or  cut  peats,  and  maintain  an  unfevered  heart.  God  keep  us  all, 
I  pray  again,  from  the  madness  of  popularity.  I  never  knew  one 
whom  it  did  not  injure.    I  have  known  strong  men  whom  it  killed. 

The  mother,  of  course,  Lad  to  be  informed. 

I  am  to  lecture  (he  wrote  to  her) ,  actually  and  bodily  to  make  my 
appearance.  They  are  gathering  an  audience  of  Marcliionesse.<, 
Ambassadors,  ah  me !  and  what  not :  all  going  like  a  house  on  fire. 
The  comfort  is  that  I  know  something  about  the  subject,  and  have 
a  tongue  in  my  head  ;  one  way  or  another  doubtless  I  shall  come 
through. 

There  was  additional  anxiety.  Mrs.  Carljle  in  the  cold 
spring  weather  had  caught  an  influenza,  and  was  seriously 
ill  again. 

She  has  lain  there  six  days  (the  same  letter  continued)  in  great 
distress,  with  very  little,  sometimes  with  no  sleep,  coughing  con- 
siderably. My  poor  Goody  !  We  have  a  doctor,  a  skilful  sort  of 
man,  I  think,  the  Sterlings'  doctor.     He  looks  grave  about  it,  says 


Public  Speaking.  87 

that  at  present  there  is  no  alai-m,  but  that  we  must  take  care.  You 
cau  fancy  me  sitting  up  to  the  neck  in  books  and  papers,  and  hear- 
ing the  sore  cough  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall.  I  have  sent  for 
Mrs.  Welsh,  or  rather  I  have  told  her  to  be  getting  ready.  She 
will  probably  come  very  soon.  It  is  a  great  blessing  that  my  own 
health  holds  out  so  well. 

Tl»e  alarm  about  Mrs.  Carlyle  passed  off ;  a  cliange  of 
weather  carried  away  the  influenza ;  Mrs.  Welsh  came  up, 
and  was  most  welcome,  though  the  occasion  of  tlie  sum- 
mons was  gone.  All  thoughts  in  Cheyne  liow  were  now 
directed  to  the  lectures.  Carlyle  had  never  spoken  in 
public,  save  a  few  w^ords  once  at  a  dinner  at  Dumfries. 
With  all  his  self-assertion  he  was  naturally  a  shy  man, 
and  only  those  who  are  either  perfectly  un-selfcoriscious 
or  pei-fectl}'  impudent  can  look  without  alarm  to  a  first  ap- 
pearance on  a  platform.  As  the  appointed  day  approached 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  anxiety  among  his  friends.  Men 
of  high  sincerity  seldom  speak  well.  It  is  an  art  to  which 
they  do  not  incline,  being  careful  about  truth,  and  know- 
ing how  difficult  it  is  to  adhere  to  truth  in  rapid  and  ex- 
cited delivery.  With  skill  and  tiaining  even  a  sincere 
man  can  speak  tolerably  without  telling  many  lies;  but  he 
is  weighted  heavily  against  competitors  who  care  for 
nothing  but  effect.  Carlyle,  quoting  Goethe,  compared 
speech -making  to  svVimming.  It  is  more  like  skating. 
When  a  man  stands  on  skates  upon  ice  for  the  first  time, 
his  feet  seem  to  have  no  hold  under  him  ;  he  feels  that  if 
he  stirs  he  will  fall ;  he  does  fall  ;  the  spectators  laugh  ; 
he  is  asliamed  and  angry  at  himself ;  he  plunges  off  some- 
how, and  finds  soon  that  if  he  is  not  afraid  he  can  at  least 
go  forward.  This  much  the  sincere  man  arrives  at  on  tlie 
platform  without  extraordinary  difficulty ;  and  if  he  lias 
any  truth  to  utter  he  can  contrive  to  utter  it,  so  that  wise 
hearers  will  understand  him.  The  curving  and  winding, 
the  graceful  sweeps  this  way  and  that  way  in  endless  cou- 


'88  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

volutions,  he  leaves  to  the  oratorical  expert,  with  whom 
he  has  no  desire  to  put  himself  in  competition. 

I  lie  quiet  (Caiiyle  wrote  to  liis  mother  three  days  before  the 
exhibition),  and  have  the  greatest  appetite  in  the  world  to  do 
nothing  at  all.  On  Monday  at  three  o'clock  comes  my  first  lect- 
ure, but  I  mean  to  take  it  as  coolly  as  possible.  It  is  neither 
death  nor  men's  lives,  whether  I  speak  well  or  speak  ill  or  do 
nothing  but  gasp.  One  of  my  friends  was  enquiring  about  it 
lately.  I  told  him  some  days  ago  I  could  speak  abundantly  and 
cared  nothing  about  it.  At  other  times  I  felt  as  if,  when  the  Monday 
came,  the  natural  speech  for  me  would  be  this :  '  Good  Chris- 
tians, it  has  become  entirely  impossible  for  me  to  talk  to  you 
about  German  or  any  literature  or  terrestrial  thing;  one  request 
only  I  have  to  make,  that  you  would  be  kind  enough  to  cover  me 
under  a  tub  for  the  next  six  weeks  and  to  go  your  ways  with  all 
my  blessing.'  This  were  a  result  well  worth  remarking;  but  it 
is  not  likely  to  be  this.  On  the  whole,  dear  mother,  fear  nothing. 
One  great  blessing  is  that  in  three  weeks  it  must  be  done  one  way 
or  another.     It  will  be  over  then,  and  all  well. 

J^obody  could  feel  assured  that  something  strange  might 
not  happen.  One  acquaintance  was  afraid  he  would  spoil 
all  by  beginning  with  '  Gentlemen  and  ladies,'  putting  the 
ladies  last.  It  was  more  likely,  his  wife  said,  that  he 
would  begin  with  ^  Men  and  women,'  or  with  '  Fool  creat- 
ures come  hither  for  diversion.' 

In  point  of  fact,  Carlyle  acted  like  himself — not  like 
other  people,  for  that  he  could  not  do.  He  had  the  usual 
difficulties.  Even  when  he  was  at  ease,  his  speech,  if  he 
was  in  earnest,  was  not  smooth  and  flowing,  but  turbid 
like  a  river  in  a  flood.  In  the  lecture-room  he  had  the 
invariable  preliminary  fear  of  breaking  down.  He  had  to 
pause  often  before  words  would  come,  for  he  was  scrupu- 
lous to  say  nothing  which  he  did  not  mean.  When  he 
became  excited,  he  spoke  with  a  broad  Annandale  accent 
and  with  the  abrupt  manners  which  he  had  learnt  in  his 
father's  house.  But  the  end  of  it  was  that  the  lectures 
were  excellent  in  themselves  and  delivered  \nth  strange 


I 


Success  of  Lectures.  89 

impressiveness.  Though  unpolislied,  he  was  a  gentleman 
in  every  fibre  of  him,  never  to  be  mistaken  for  anything 
else ;  and  the  final  effect  was  the  same  as  that  which  was 
produced  by  his  writings,  that  here  was  a  new  man  with 
something  singular  to  say  which  well  deserved  attention. 
Of  the  first  lecture  Carlyle  writes  : — 

There  was  plenty  of  incondite  stuff,  and  a  furious  determination 
on  the  poor  lecturer's  pai-t  not  to  break  down.  I  pitied  myself,  so 
agitated,  terrified,  driven  despemte  and  furious ;  but  I  found  I 
had  no  remedy,  necessity  compelling. 

AVlien  all  was  over,  he  sent  a  full  account  to  his  brother. 

To  John  Carlyle^  RoTne. 

Chelsea :  May  30,  1837. 

As  to  the  lectures  the  thing  went  off  not  without  eflfect,  and  I 
have  great  cause  to  be  thankful  I  am  so  handsomely  quit  of  it. 
The  audience,  composed  of  mere  quality  and  notabilities,  was 
very  humane  to  me.  They  seemed  indeed  to  be  not  a  little  as- 
tonished at  the  wild  Annandale  voice  which  occasionally  grew 
high  and  eatnest.  In  these  cases  they  sate  as  still  under  me  as 
stones.  I  had,  I  think,  two  hundred  and  odd.  The  pecuniary 
net  result  is  135/.,  the  expenses  being  great;  but  the  ulterior 
issues  may  be  less  inconsiderable.  It  seems  possible  I  may  get 
into  a  kind  of  way  of  lecturing,  or  otherwise  speaking  direct  to 
my  fellow-creatures,  and  so  get  delivered  out  of  this  awful  quag- 
mire of  diflBculties  in  which  you  have  so  long  seen  me  struggle 
and  wriggle.  Heaven  be  thanked  that  it  is  done  this  time  so 
tolerably,  and  we  here  still  alive.  I  hardly  ever  in  my  life  had 
such  a  moment  as  that  of  the  commencement  when  you  were 
thinking  of  me  at  Rome.  My  printers  had  only  ceased  the  day 
before.  I  was  wasted  and  fretted  to  a  thread.  My  tongue,  let 
me  drink  as  I  would,  continued  dry  as  charcoal.  The  people  were 
there  ;  I  was  obliged  to  tumble  in  and  start.  Ach  Gott !  But  it 
was  got  through,  and  so  here  we  are.  Our  mother  was  black-baised, 
though  I  had  written  to  her  to  be  only  white-haised.  But  she  read 
the  notice  in  the  *  Times,'  and  *  wept,'  she  tells  me,  and  again  read 
it.    Jane  went  to  the  last  four  lectures  and  did  not  faint. 

And  now  I  am  delving  in  the  garden  to  compose  myself,  and 
meaning,  to  have  things  leisurely  bottlod  up  here,  and  then  start 


90  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

for  Scotland.  I  shonld  much  approve  of  yonr  scheme  of  our  going 
all  in  a  body.  Indeed  I  have  tried  it  every  way,  but  it  will  not  do. 
Quiet  observation  forces  on  me  the  conclusion  that  Jane  and  her 
mother  cannot  live  together.  Very  sad  and  miserable,  you  will 
say.  Truly,  but  so  it  is  ;  and  I  am  further  bound  to  say  that  the 
chief  blame  does  verily  not  lie  at  our  side  of  the  house.  Nay, 
who  would  be  in  haste  to  lay  any  blame  anywhere  ?  But  poor 
Mrs.  Welsh,  wdth  litei-ally  the  best  intentions,  is  a  person  you  can- 
not live  with  peaceably  on  any  other  terms  I  could  ever  discover 
than  those  of  disregarding  altogether  the  whims,  emotions,  ca- 
prices, and  conclusions  she  takes  up  chameleonlike  by  the  thou- 
sand daily.  She  and  I  do  very  well  together  on  these  terms  :  at 
least  I  do.  But  Jane  and  she  cannot  live  so.  MrS.  Welsh  seems 
to  think  of  going  off  home  in  a  short  time.  Jane  prefers  being 
left  here,  and  thinks  that  she  could  even  do  better  without  the 
perpetual  pouting  and  fretting  she  is  tried  with. 

My  own  health  is  not  fundamentally  hurt.  Best  will  cure  me. 
I  must  be  a  toughish  kind  of  a  lath  after  all;  for  my  life  here 
these  three  years  has  been  sore  and  stern,  almost  frightful ;  noth- 
ing but  eternity  beyond  it,  in  which  seemed  any  peace.  Perhaps 
better  days  are  now  beginning.  God  be  thanked  we  can  still  do 
without  such  ;  still  and  always  if  so  it  be.  ...  I  grow  better 
daily ;  I  delve,  as  you  heard ;  I  walk  much,  generally  alone  through 
the  lanes  and  parks ;  I  have  lived  much  alone  for  a  long  time, 
refusing  to  go  anywhere  ;  finding  no  pleasure  in  going  anywhere 
or  speaking  with  anyone. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  allowed  to  read  this  letter  with  the 
remarks  on  her  mother,  for  she  adds  a  P.S. 

I  do  not  find  that  my  husband  has  given  you  any  adequate  notion 
of  the  success  of  his  lectures  ;  but  you  will  make  large  allowance 
for  the  known  modesty  of  the  man.  Nothing  that  he  has  ever 
tried  seems  to  me  to  have  carried  such  conviction  to  the  public 
heart  that  he  is  a  real  man  of  genius,  and  worth  being  kept  alive 
at  a  moderate  rate.  Lecturing  were  surely  an  easier  profession 
than  authorship.  We  shall  see.  My  cough  is  quite  gone,  and 
there  is  no  consumj^tion  about  me  at  present.  I  expect  to  grow 
strong,  now  that  he  has  nothing  more  to  worry  him. 

Miss  Wilson  and  Miss  Martineau  had  done  well  for 
Carlyle  with  their  lecture  adventure.     Tliej  had  .brouglit 


Success  of  Lectures.  91 

him  directly  under  the  public  eye  at  an  important  moment 
of  his  life ;  but  far  more  than  that,  they  had  solved  the 
problem  whether  it  was  possible  for  him  to  continue  in 
London  and  follow  his  trade.  135^.,  to  the  modest  house- 
hold in  Cheyne  Row,  was  not  only,  as  Carlyle  called  it, 
*  financial  safety '  for  a  year  to  come,  but  it  was  wealth 
and  luxury.  Another  course  had  been  promised  for  the 
season  following,  the  profits  of  which  could  hardly  be  less, 
and  with  a  safe  income  of  150^.  a  year  the  thrifty  pair 
would  feel  superior  to  fortune.  At  all  events  the  heavy 
veil  on  the  future  had  now  lifted.  There  would  be  no 
more  talk  of  the  American  backwoods,  or  of  a  walk  over 
Europe  like  Teufelsdrockh.  Ko  '  roup '  need  be  feared  in 
Cheyne  liow,  or  even  such  pinch  of  penury  as  had  been 
already  experienced  there.  Life  and  labor  were  now  made 
possible  on  honest  terms,  and  literary  recognition,  if  it 
was  to  come  at  all,  could  be  waited  for  without  starvation. 
It  was  as  if  some  cursed  enchanter's  spell  had  been  broken. 
How  the  fetters  had  galled,  Carlyle  hardly  knew  till  he 
began  to  stretch  his  limbs  in  freedom.  The  *  French 
lie  volution '  was  published  immediately  afterwards.  It 
was  not  '  subscribed  for '  among  the  booksellers.  The 
author's  name  was  unknown  to  most  of  them,  and  the  rest 
had  no  belief  in  him.  The  book  itself,  style  and  matter, 
was  so  new,  so  unlike  anything  that  had  ever  been  seen 
before,  that  the  few  who  read  it  knew  not  what  to  say  or 
think.  The  reviewers  were  puzzled.  Such  a  fabric  could 
not  be  appraised  at  once  like  a  specimen  from  a  familiar 
loom.  The  sale  at  first  was  slow,  almost  nothing;  but 
Carlyle  was  not  dissatisfied  with  the  few  opinions  which 
reached  him.  *■  Some,'  he  said,  '  condemn  me,  as  is  very 
natural,  for  affectation  ;  others  are  hearty,  even  passionate 
[as  Mill],  in  their  estimation  ;  on  the  whole,  it  strikes  me 
as  not  unlikely  that  the  book  may  take  some  hold  of  the 
English  people,  and  do  tlicui  and  itself  a  little  good.' 


92  Carhjle^s  Life  in  London. 

One  letter  especially  pleased  him.  '  Jeffrey,'  he  said, 
writes  to  me  full  of  good  augury,  of  praise  and  blame,  and 
how  I  shall  infallibly  be  much  praised  and  much  blamed, 
and,  on  the  whole,  carry  my  point :  really  a  kind  hearty 
letter  from  the  little  man.'  This  was  well  enough,  but 
months  would  pass  before  anything  could  be  gathered  like 
a  general  verdict ;  and  Carlyle,  after  the  long  strain,  was 
sinking  into  lassitude. 

To  John  Sterling. » 

Chelsea  :  June  7,  1837. 

Eeviews  and  magazines,  and  the  other  Egyptian  plagues  of  what 
is  called  literature,  do  in  these  days  fill  me  with  a  kind  of  sacred 
horror,  equal  at  least  to  the  plague  of  frogs  ;  intrusive  into  your 
very  bread -oven.  Seriously,  however,  I  am  heartily  glad  to  know 
that  you  are  writing,  publishing  in  this  vehicle  or  the  other.  One 
must  take  such  vehicles  as  there  are.  Lay  thy  manna  on  the  dog's- 
meat  tray,  since  there  is  no  other,  and  let  the  hawker  hawk  it 
among  his  quadrupeds.  If  by  chance  a  biped  pass  that  way,  he 
will  snatch  it  and  appropriate  it,  thou  knowest  not  how.  .  .  . 
Verily,  this  whole  world  grows  magical  and  hyper-magical  to  me  : 
death  written  on  all,  yet  everlasting  life  also  written  on  all.  How 
Homers,  and  Mahomets,  and  Bulwers,  and  snuffy  Socinian 
preachers,  and  all  people  and  things  that  sojourned  on  earth,  go 
marching,  marching,  towards  the  Inane,  till,  as  your  boys  say. 
Flop  !  they  are  not.  I  have  done  nothing  of  late  but  dig  earth 
and  brick  rubbish  in  ihis  little  garden  so  called,  and  walk  solitary 
in  the  lanes,  avoiding  rather  than  seeking  the  face  of  man.  Very 
spectral  I  am  every  way. 

Your  father  and  I  go  along  very  lovingly,  with  a  certain  broad- 
side of  logic  now  and  then,  each  to  show  the  other  that  he  does 
carry  gunpowder.  Smoke  over  the  masthead  on  these  occasions  ; 
but  it  seems  to  purify  the  air  between  us,  and  then  we  sail  along 
in  the  sweetest  manner,  gentle  as  babes  in  the  wood. 

I  met  Maurice  in  the  Strand  yesterday.  He  is  growing  broader, 
thicker,  and  gets  a  clerical  air.  I  know  not  why  I  should  not  wish 
him  clerical  as  an  English  clergyman,  yet  I  never  do.  His  vehe- 
ment earnestness  in  twisting  such  a  rope  of  sand  as  I  reckon  that 
to  be,  occasions  me  at  times  a  certain  misgiving — written  very 
legible  to  my  eyes  stands  the  doom  of  that  thing. 


Holiday  at  Scotsh'ig.  93 

I  cannot  say  a  word  to  you  of  the  book  or  of  the  lectnreB,  except 
that  by  the  imspeakable  blessing  of  Heaven  they  are  finished. 
My  heai-ers  were  mixtiform  dandiacal  of  both  sexes,  Diyasdustical 
(Hallam,  &c.),  ingenuous,  ingenious,  and  grew,  on  the  whole, 
more  and  more  silent.  As  to  the  book,  I  rather  avoid  hearing 
about  it ;  what  clash  there  may  be  about  it,  of  lamentation,  admo- 
nition.    The  style  !  oh  the  style  ! ! 

You  announce  that  you  are  rather  quitting  philosophy  and  the- 
ology— I  predict  that  you  will  quit  them  more  and  more.  I  give 
it  you  as  my  decided  prognosis  that  the  two  provinces  in  ques- 
tion are  become  Theorem,  bi*ain-web  and  shadow,  wherein  no 
earnest  soul  can  find  solidity  for  itself.  Shadow,  I  say ;  yet  the 
shadow  projected  from  an  everlasting  reality  that  is  within  our- 
selves.    Quit  the  shadow,  seek  the  reality. 

Mili  is  in  better  health,  still  not  in  good.  The  set  of  people  he 
is  in,  is  one  that  I  have  to  keep  out  of.  No  class  of  mortals  ever 
profited  me  less.  There  is  a  vociferous  platitude  in  them,  a 
mangy  hungry  discontent ;  their  very  joy  like^  that  of  a  thing 
scratching  itself  under  disease  of  the  itch.  Mill  was  infinitely  too 
good  for  them  ;  but  he  would  have  it,  and  his  fate  would.  I  love 
him  much  as  a  friend  frozen  in  ice  for  me. ' 

A  few  days  after  the  date  of  this  letter,  Carljle  fled  to 
Scotland  fairly  broken  down.  He  had  fought  and  won 
his  long  battle.  The  reaction  had  come,  and  his  strangely 
organised  nervous  system  was  shattered.  He  went  by  sea 
from  Liverpool  to  Annan.  His  brother  Alick  had  come 
to  meet  him  at  Annan  pier,  and  together  they  walked  up 
to  Ecclefechan.  The  view  from  the  road  across  the  Sol- 
way  to  the  Cumberland  mountains  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  in  the  island.  The  brother  having  some  busi- 
ness in  a  cottage,  Carlyle  was  left  alone  leaning  on  a  mile- 
stone and  looking  back  on  the  scene.  '  Tartarus  itself,'  he 
says,  '  and  the  pale  kingdoms  of  Dis,  could  not  have  been 
more  pretei-natural  to  me — most  stern,  gloomy,  sad,  grand 
yet  terrible,  yet  steeped  in  woe.'  The  spot  had  been 
familiar  to  him  from  childhood.     The  impression  was  not 

1  The  last  two  paragraphs  are  taken  from  another  htter  to  Sterling,  and  are 

added  hero  for  brevity. 


94  Carlyle's  Life  in  Londo7i. 

a  momentary  emotion,  but  abode  with  him  for  many  years. 
Let  not  the  impatient  reader  call  it  affectation  or  exaggera- 
tion. If  he  does,  he  will  know  nothing  of  Carlyle.  These 
spectral  visions  were  part  of  his  nature,  and  always 
haunted  him  when  his  mind  had  been  overstrained.  He 
stayed  at  Scotsbrig  two  months,  wholly  idle,  reading 
novels,  smoking  pipes  in  the  garden  with  his  mother, 
hearing  notices  of  his  book  from  a  distance,  but  not  look- 
ing for  them  or  caring  about  them.  '  The  weather,'  he 
says  in  a  letter,  'after  a  long  miserable  spring,  is  the 
beautifullest  I  ever  saw.  The  trees  wave  peaceful  music 
in  front  of  my  window,  which  is  shoved  np  to  the  very 
top.  Mother  is  washing  in  the  kitchen  to  my  left.  The 
sound  of  Jamie  building  his  peat-stack  is  audible,  and  they 
are  storing  potatoes  down  below.  .  .  .  My  soul's  one 
wdsli  is  to  be  left  alone,  to  hear  the  rustle  of  the  trees,  the 
music  of  the  burn,  and  lie  vacant,  as  ugly  and  stupid  as  I 
like.  There  is  soothing  and  healing  for  me  in  the  green 
solitude  of  these  simple  places.  I  bless  myself  that  the 
broiling  horror  of  London  is  far  away.  A  favourable  re- 
view in  the  "  Chronicle  ; "  a  favourable  review  in  the 
^'London  and  Westminster,"  &c.,  &c. — no  one  of  these 
have  I  yet  set  eyes  on.  I  find  it  at  bottom  hurtful  to  look 
after  the  like — one  has  a  prurient  titillability  of  that  kind 
extremely  despicable,  which  it  is  better  wholly  to  steer 
clear  of.' 

A  very  beautiful  letter  follows,  to  Sterling. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Scotsbrig  :  July  28,  1837. 
There  is  no  idler,  sadder,  quieter,  more  ghostlike  man  in  the  world 
even  now  than  I.  Most  weary,  fiat,  stale,  seem  to  me  all  the  elec- 
tioneerings, and  screechings,  and  jibberings,  that  the  earth  is  filled 
with,  in  these,  or  indeed  in  any  days.  Men's  very  sorrows,  and 
the  tears  one's  heart  weeps  when  the  eye  is  dry,  what  is  in  that 
either  ?  In  an  hour,  will  not  death  make  it  all  still  again  ?  Never- 
theless the  old  brook — Middlebie  Burn  we  call  it — still  leaps  into 


Holiday  at  ScoUh^lg.  95 

its  *car«/ran'  here,  gushes  clear  as  crystal  through  the  chasms 
and  dingles  of  its  '  Linn,'  singing  me  a  song  with  slight  variations 
of  score  these  several  thousand  years — a  song  better  for  me  than 
Pasta's  !  I  look  on  the  sapphire  of  St.  Bees  head  and  the  Solway 
mirror  from  the  gable  window.  I  ride  to  the  top  of  Blaweery,  and 
see  all  round  from  Ettrick  Pen  to  Helvellyn,  from  Tyndale  and 
Northumberland  to  Cairnsmuir  and  Ayrshire.  Voir  dest  avoir.  A 
brave  old  earth  after  all,  in  which,  as  above  said,  I  am  content  to 
acquiesce  without  quarrel,  and,  at  lowest,  hold  my  peace.  One 
night,  late,  I  rode  through  the  village  where  I  was  bom.  The 
old  kirkyard  tree,  a  huge  old  gnarled  ash,  was  nestling  itself 
softly  against  the'  great  twilight  in  the  north.  A  star  or  two 
looked  out,  and  the  old  graves  were  all  there,  and  my  father  and 
my  sister  ;  and  God  was  above  us  all.' 

To  bis  wife  he  wrote  regularly,  but  in  a  tone  somewhat 
constrained. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  July  23, 1837. 

Many  thanks,  my  dear  Bairn,  for  thy  two  long  lively  letters,  the 
faithful  reflex  of  that  cockney-laud  phantasmagory,  all  glittering 
and  whirling  with  changeful  sights  and  sounds,  from  oj^era  soirees 
to  madhouse  cells,  in  which,  however,  this  one  satisfactory  fact 
evinces  itself,  that  my  poor  Jeannie  is  tolerably  well  in  it,  and 
enjoys  herself  a  little  there.  Suave  mari  magna.  I,  sitting  here 
on  the  safe  brink,  have  not  had  two  gladder  hours  than  thy  two 
franks  gave  me.  It  is  a  pity,  and  perhaps  not  a  pity,  that  so  lively 
a  pen  did  not  turn  itseK  to  writing  of  books.  My  coagitor,  too,  might 
become  a  distinguished  female.  Nay,  after  all,  w  ho  knows  ?  But 
perhaps  we  are  better  as  we  are,  '  probably  just  as  well.*  I  know 
not  why,  did  pure  Utilitarian  intellect  rule  us,  I  should  write  a 
letter  to-day.  A  newspaper,  and  two  strokes  to  indicate  from  the 
bottom  of  my  ditch  that  nothing  is  wrong  with  me,  and  a  third, 
if  that  were  at  any  time  needful,  to  indicate  that  I  do  with  my 
whole  soul  wish  you  well — this  really  is  the  amount  of  all  that, 
with  quires  of  paper,  I  could  wi-ite.  I  am  doing  nothing :  wit- 
nessing nothing.  My  stupidity  is  gi-eat,  my  sadness,  my  tran- 
quillity. Nothing  more  ghostlike  diversifies  anywhere  the  green 
surface  of  July  in  this  world.  But  yet  if  to  anybody  on  earth, 
then  surely  to  thee,  its  partner  of  good  and  evil,  does  the  poor 
worn-out  soul  of  me  turn.     I  will  clatter  and  croak  with  thee  for 


96  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

an  lionr.  They  say  I  am  growing  better,  looking  'better.  I  do 
believe  it  is  a  kind  of  road  towards  betterness  that  I  am  travelling. 
This  is  the  sum  of  all  my  news.  Very  generally  the  history  of  my 
day  is  somewhat  thus  :  Breakfast  shortly  after  such  hour  as  I 
awake  at,  any  time  from  seven  till  nine  ;  shaving,  dawdling,  read- 
ing, smoking,  till  dinner  about  two  or  three  ;  a  ride  on  a  little 
violent  walking  pony  of  Jamie's,  oftenest  to  the  top  of  Blaweery, 
where  I  have  the  benefit  of  total  solitude,  and  a  prospect  of  wide 
miles  of  sea  and  air ;  then  tea,  succeeded  again  by  dawdling, 
smoking,  reading,  and  clatter,  till  porridge  come,  and  eleven 
o'clock  and  sleep.  No  man  need  do  less.  I  cannot  be  said  to 
think  of  anything.  I  merely  look  and  drowsily  muse.  When  tide 
and  weather  serve,  I  ride  down  to  bathe.  Alick  or  Maiy  gets  me 
up  some  victual,  I  smoke  a  pipe,  and  amble  home  again. 

Spenser's  knight,  sorely  wounded  in  his  fight  with  the 
dragon,  fell  back  under  the  enchanted  tree  whence 

flowed,  as  from  a  well, 
A  trickling  stream  of  balm  most  sovereign. 
Life  and  long  health  that  gracious  ointment  gave, 
And  deadly  wounds  could  heal,  and  rear  again 
The  senseless  corse  appointed  for  the  grave. 
Into  that  same  he  fell  which  did  from  death  him  save. 

What  that  tree  was  to  the  bleeding  warrior,  the  poor 
Annadale  farmhouse,  its  quiet  innocence,  and  the  affec- 
tionate kindred  there,  proved  then  as  always  to  Carlyle, 
for  he  too  had  been  fighting  dragons  and  been  heavily 
beaten  upon.  One  more  letter  may  be  given,  which  ex- 
plains the  tone  in  which  he  had  written  to  Chelsea. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  August  12. 

Our  good  mother  keeps  very  well  here.  She  and  I  have  been, 
out  once  or  twice  for  two  hours,  helping  Jamie  with  his  hay.  She 
is  '  waul  as  an  eel '  while  working.  She  cooks  our  little  meal  which 
we  eat  peaceably  together.  She  mends  clothes,  bakes  scons,  is 
very  fond  of  newspapers,  especially  Eadical  ones,  and  stands  up 
for  the  rights  of  man.  She  has  toiled  on  into  near  the  end  of  the 
second  volume  of  the  *  French  Ee volution,'  not  without  consider- 


^French  lievclution.^  97 

able  understandinpf  of  it,  though  tlie  French  names  are  a  sad  clog. 
She  will  make  it  out  pretty  completely  by-and-by. 

Jane  represents  herself  as  better  than  she  was,  but  far  enough 
from  well.  I  do  not  at  all  like  the  state  she  is  in,  but  I  cannot 
niter  it.  I  try  always  to  hope  it  will  alter.  She  wiites  in  gi-eat 
spirits ;  but  there  is  no  fund  of  real  cheerfulness.  There  is  not 
even  a  seiious  melancholy  visible.     My  poor  Jane  ! 

Cavaignac  is  angry  with  me  for  my  treatment  of  the  Sea-green 
man  '  and  bnpartialUe  generally.  I  take  no  side  in  the  matter. 
How  very  singular !  As  to  the  success  of  the  book  I  know  almost 
nothing,  but  suppose  it  to  be  considerably  greater  than  I  expected. 
I  understand  there  have  been  many  reviews  of  a  veiy  mixed  char- 
acter. I  got  one  in  the  *  Times '  last  week.  The  writer  is  one 
Thackeray,  a  half-monstrous  Cornish  giant,  kind  of  painter,  Cam- 
bridge man,  and  Paris  newspaper  correspondent,  who  is  now  writ- 
ing for  his  life  in  London.  I  have  seen  him  at  the  Bullers'  and  at 
Sterling's.  His  article  is  rather  like  him,  and  I  suppose  calculated 
to  do  the  book  good. 

» Robespierre. 
Vol.  ni.~7 


CHAPTEE  Y. 

A.D.  1837-8.     MT.  42-43. 

Effects  of  the  book — Change  in  Caiiyle's  position — Thoughts  on 
the  cholera — Article  on  Sir  Walter  Scott — Proposals  for  a  col- 
lection of  miscellanies — Lord  Monteagle — The  great  world — 
T.  Erskine — Literature  as  a  profession — Miss  Martineau — 
Popularity — Second  course  of  lectures — Financial  results — 
Increasing  fame. 

Autumn,  as  usual,  brought  back  the  migratory  London 
flocks,  and  among  them  Carlyle.  He  found  his  wife  bet- 
ter in  health,  delighted  to  have  him  again  at  her  side,  and 
in  lightened  humour  altogether.  She  knew,  though  he, 
so  little  vain  was  he,  had  failed  as  yet  to  understand  it, 
that  he  had  returned  to  a  changed  position,  that  he  was 
no  longer  lonely  and  neglected,  but  had  taken  his  natural 
place  among  the  great  writers  of  his  day.  Popular  he 
might  not  be.  Popularity  with  the  multitude  he  had  to 
wait  for  many  a  year ;  but  he  was  acknowledged  by  all 
whose  judgment  carried  weight  with  it  to  have  become 
actually  what  Goethe  had  long  ago  foretold  that  he  would 
be — a  new  moral  force  in  Europe,  the  extent  of  which 
could  not  be  foreseen,  but  must  be  great  and  might  be  im- 
measurable. He  was  still  poor,  wretchedly  poor  accord- 
ing to  the  modern  standard.  But  the  Carlyles  did  not 
think  about  standards,  and  on  that  score  had  no  more 
anxieties.  He  had  no  work  on  hand  or  immediate  desire 
for  any.  He  was  able  to  tell  his  brother  John  that, 
'  having  no  book  to  write  in  the  coming  year,  he  would 


Success  of  the  Booh,  99 

not  feel  so  fretted  and  would  fret  no  one  else :  there  would 
be  a  clieei-fnller  houseliold  than  of  old.'  An  article  on 
Sir  Walter  Scott  had  been  promised  to  Mill,  and  a  subject 
had  to  be  thonojht  of  for  the  next  Spring's  lectures.  Both 
of  these  would  be  easy  tasks.  Meanwhile,  he  discovered 
that  his  wife  was  right.  'He  was  to  be  considered  as  a 
kind  of  successful  man.  The  poor  book  had  done  him 
real  service  in  truth,  had  been  abundantly  reviewed  and 
talked  about  and  belauded;  neither,  apparently,  had  it 
yet  done.'  lie  sent  to  Scotsbrig  cheery  accounts  of  him- 
self. 'I  find  John  Sterling  here,'  he  said,  'and  many 
friends,  all  kinder  each  than  the  other  to  me.  With  talk 
and  locomotion  the  days  pass  cheerfully  till  I  rest  and  gird 
myself  together  again.  They  make  a  great  talk  about 
the  book,  which  seems  to  have  succeeded  in  a  far  higher 
degree  than  I  looked  for.  Everybody  is  astonished  at 
every  other  body's  being  pleased  with  this  wonderful  per- 
formance.' 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea:  October 9,  1837. 
People  all  say,  '  How  much  better  you  look  ! '  The  gi-and  im- 
provement I  trace  is  that  of  being  far  calmer  than  I  was,  the  im- 
mense fuff  having  subsided  into  composure,  ...  I  have  seen 
most  of  my  friends  that  are  here.  All  people  are  very  good  to  me. 
Doubt  not,  dear  mother,  I  shall  be  able  to  do  better  now,  have 
a  far  better  chance.  My  book  has  been  abundantly  reviewed, 
praised,  and  discussed.  Fraser  also  tells  me  it  is  steadfastly  mak- 
ing way.  Also  I  must  mention  a  strange  half -daft  Edinburgh  gen- 
tleman that  called  here  last  week  to  congi-atulate.  He  however 
went  upon  the  old  article  *  Characteristics,*  and  illustrified  us  at  a 
great  rate  ;  an  elder  of  the  Kirk,  brimful  of  religion,  a  very  queer 
man  indeed.  At  bottom  I  fancy  you,  dear  mother,  apprehensive 
now  that  we  shall  err  in  the  other  way,  that  it  will  *  tak  haV  d  thee^ 
Tom.''  No  fear,  no  fear  at  all !  When  one  is  turned  of  forty  and 
has  almost  twenty  years  of  stomach  disease  to  draw  upon,  there 
is  great  safety  as  to  that.  A  voice  from  the  interior  of  the  liver 
cries  out  too  sternly  '  What's  ta  use  on't  ? ' 


100  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

.  In  his  extremest  poverty  Carlyle  liad  always  contrived 
his  little  presents  to  give  his  mother  comforts  which  she 
would  never  have  allowed  to  herself.  Xow,  feeling  him- 
self easy  and  on  the  way  to  what,  in  his  estimate  of  such 
things,  w^ould  be  riches,  he  sent  her  a  more  generous  of- 
fering. '  And  what  picture  is  this,  dear  mother  % '  he 
said,  enclosing  a  bank  note.  '  It  is  to  buy  you  a  little  keg 
of  ale,  and  some  warm  things  through  the  winter.  The 
money  I  gave  you  last  you  gave  wholly  away  again,  or  almost 
wholly.  It  is  a  thing  totally  absurd.  I  beg  you  to  accept 
this,  and  I  insist  upon  it ;  and  write  me,  when  }'ou  next 
take  up  the  pen,  not  useless  speech,  but  an  account  of  all 
the  warm  clothings  and  furnishings  Jenny  ^  and  you  have 
laid  in  by  my  order.'  Then,  as  always,  Carlyle's  gener- 
osity was  in  an  'inverse  ratio'  to  his  means.  His  expend- 
iture on  himself  was  to  the  last  thrifty,  even  to  parsimony, 
w^iile  he  scarcely  seemed  to  know  what  he  gave  away  to 
others. 

John  Carlyle,  not  finding  sufficient  occupation  in  attend- 
ing on  Lady  Clare,  was  practising  as  a  physician  at  Eome 
on  his  own  account.  The  cholera  had  broken  out  there, 
and  he  w^as  giving  his  service  gratis  among  the  poor. 
There  were  universal  terror,  selfishness,  and  inhumanity ; 
tlie  Pope  and  the  Monsignori  had  shown  particular  cow- 
ardice ;  the  inferior  priests  had  been  brave  and  devoted. 
John  had  written  about  all  this  to  Chelsea. 

Men  are  great  blockheads  (Carlyle  answered)  and  very  miserable. 
Your  letter  is  a  true  emblem  of  a  country  suffering  dreadfully  by 
Heaven's  visitation,  and  still  more  by  its  own  folly  and  frenzy.  We 
remember  well  enough  how  it  was  in  Dumfriesshire,  yet  with  this 
difference  in  our  favour,  that  village  was  not  shut  against  village, 
and  we  had  only  the  madness  of  fear  in  an  isolated  inorganic  shape. 
God  preserve  you,  dear  brother,  in  the  midst  of  these  perils !  As 
I  used  to  say  to  myself,  *  Are  we  not  at  all  times  near  to  deaths 
separated  from  us  by  a  mere  film  ? '     God  will  preserve  us  till  our 

*  The  youngest  sister,  still  living  at  Scotsbrig. 


Tluyuglds  on  ilm  Cholera.  10  L 

days  and  their  work  are  done.  Therefore,  at  leaat,  -we  will  not 
live  in  bondage  to  the  vile  tyranny  of  fear.  Expose  not  yourself 
without  duty  to  do  ;  but  with  duty  again  one  will  dread  no  expos- 
ure. As  for  you,  you  had  a  distinct  call  to  go  and  seek  your  daily 
bread.     "Would  to  Heaven  it  were  well  over  for  you  aU ! 

Another  interesting  letter  came  about  the  heroism  of 
the  poorer  clergy,  which  led  to  a  long  reply. 

To  John   Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  November  7,  1837. 
Danger  of  death  is  something  ;  but  the  madness  of  mortals  un- 
der base  panic  storming  round  one  is  more  insupportable  than 
any  danger.  We  had  reports  last  week  that  cholera  was  in  Lon- 
don too  ;  but  the  news  did  not  take.  Indeed  Cockneydom  is  too 
busy  to  yield  lightly  to  j^anic.  Cholera,  as  I  used  to  tell  the  gab- 
bling blockheads,  holds  nothing  in  it  that  the  pitifullest  catarrh, 
the  fall  of  a  roof,  the  breakdown  of  a  hackney-coach  may  not  hold. 
Death  !  That  is  the  utmost  the  crash  of  the  whole  solar  and  stel- 
lar system  could  bring  on  us  ;  and  to  that  we  have  been  used  for 
G,000  years  now,  or  nearly  so.  For  the  rest  we  will  honour  the 
Jesuits  and  other  poor  priests,  and  pity  the  Monsignori  and  the 
*  Holiness  of  our  Lord,'  to  whom  the  faith  of  a  common  Russian 
soldier  does  not  seem  to  have  been  vouchsafed  in  this  instance. 
But  it  was  so  at  Dumfries  too.  Only  one  clergyman  dared  enter 
their  horror  of  a  hospital  there,  and  he  was  an  old  Roman  Cath- 
olic. Walter  Dunlop  carried  it  at  length  so  far  that  he  ventured 
on  pmying  through  a  window,  with  or  without  benefit.  .  .  .  For 
myself  (he  goes  on  now  to  speak  of  other  things)  there  is  little  to  be 
bragged  of,  but  yet  nothing  specially  to  be  complained  of.  I  feel 
a  great  change  in  me  accomplished  and  going  on  ;  a  state  of  hu- 
mour in  many  points  new,  unnamed,  of  which  in  its  present  state 
it  is  above  all  unpleasant  and  useless  to  apeak.  My  life  is  full  of 
sadness,  streaked  with  wild  gleamings  of  a  very  strange  joy,  but 
habitually  sad  enough.  The  dead  seem  as  much  my  companions 
as  the  living  ;  death  as  much  present  with  me  as  life.  The  only 
wise  thing  I  can  do  is  to  hold  my  tongue  and  see  what  will  come 
of  it.  In  regard  to  temporals,  I  believe  if  I  had  these  two,  health 
and  impudence,  I  might  make  great  way  here  ;  but  having  neither 
of  them,  one  sees  not  so  well  how  it  will  be  ;  one  knows  not 
which  may  be  best.    Alas  !  I  trace  in  myself  such  a  devilish  dispo- 


102  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

sition  on  many  sides,  such  abysses  of  self-conceit,  disgust,  and  in- 
satiability, I  think  many  times  it  were  better  and  safer  I  were  kept 
always  sunk,  pinched  in  the  ice  of  poverty  and  obscurity  till  death 
quietly  received  me  and  I  were  at  rest.  If  you  call  this  hypochon- 
driacal, consider  the  unutterable  discrepancy  that  lies  in  these  two 
facts  ;  a  man  becoming  notable  as  a  light  or  rushlight  of  his  gen- 
eration, and  possessed  of  resources  to  serve  him  three  or  four 
months  without  an  outlook  beyond.  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to 
lecture  again  in  spring,  God  knows  on  what.  No  blessing  in  the 
world  were  dearer  to  me  than  that  of  being  allowed  now  to  hold 
my  peace  for  a  twelvemonth.  If  I  had  wings  I  would  fly  to  Italy, 
fly  to  Saturn,  somewhither  where  I  could  be  let  alone.  And  yet, 
dear  Jack,  through  all  this  black  weather  of  sorrow  and  imbecility 
there  is  verily  one  glance  of  imjirovement  very  generally  discern- 
ible, the  deep  settled  invincible  determination  to  be  at  rest.  In 
my  saddest  moments  I  say,  *  Well,  then,  we  shall  go  to  ruin,  to 
death  if  thou  wilt.  But  we  will  not  rage  about  it ;  we  will  rest. 
There  will  be  rest  then  ;  I  hope,  and  really  almost  believe,  there 
is  the  beginning  of  a  new  life  for  me  in  this  symptom,  which  is  a 
deep  and  genuine  one.' 

His  mother  need  not  liave  been  afraid  that  '  it  would 
tak'  hal'  o'  thee,  Tom.'  In  spite  of  the  '  devilish  disposi- 
tion,' the  'abysses-  of  conceit,'  that  he  spoke  of,  Carlyle 
did  not  mean  to  be  spoilt  by  becoming  notable. 

There  is  nothing  I  am  thankfuller  for  (he  said)  than  to  feel  my- 
self pretty  well  assured  that  neither  the  staying  out  of  fame,  nor 
still  more  the  coming  of  it  in  any  quantity,  can  at  this  time  do  me 
much  mischief.  The  liveliest  image  of  hell  on  earth  that  I  can 
form  to  myself  is  that  of  a  poor  bladder  of  a  creature,  blown  up 
by  j)opular  wind,  and  bound  to  keep  himself  blown  under  pain  of 
torment  very  severe,  and  with  torment  all  the  while,  and  the 
cracking  to  pieces  of  all  good  that  was  in  him.  I  have  looked  on 
this  close  at  hand,  and  do  shudder  at  it  as  the  sternest  doom  that 
can  befall  a  son  of  Adam.  Let  me  break  stones  on  the  highway 
rather,  and  be  in  my  own  heart  at  peace.  It  is  this  that  I  reckon 
to  be  the  great  reward  of  my  fierce  fight  of  these  later  years.  I 
do  feel  peaceable,  and  with  a  peace  not  dependent  on  other  men 
or  outward  things,  but  on  myself.  God  be  thanked  for  it,  and 
make  it  grow ! 


Article  on  Sir  Walter  Scott.  103 

Tke  Journal,  which  had  been  silent  for  almost  a  year, 
now  begins  to  speak  again. 

Journal. 

November  15,  1837. — ^Not  a  word  writfen  here  till  now.  Jane 
fell  sick  (to  the  extent  of  terrifying  me)  in  the  saddest  circum- 
stances every  way,  directly  after  lecture  on  German  literature,  in 
the  first  week  in  May.  Horrid  misery  of  that  in  my  then  state  of 
nerves !  Book  out  about  1st  of  June.  Jane's  mother  here.  I  oflf 
to  Scotland  on  the  20th  of  that  month,  where  I  lay  like  one  buried 
alive  till  the  middle  of  September,  when  I  returned  hither  in  a 
kind  of  dead-alive  state,  for  which  there  was  no  name,  of  which 
there  was  no  wTiting.  Why  chronicle  it?  The  late  long  effort 
had  really  all  but  killed  me  ;  not  the  writing  of  the  book,  but  the 
writing  of  it  amid  such  sickness,  poverty,  and  despair.  The  re- 
ception of  it,  everyone  says,  is  good,  and  so  good.  It  may  be  so ; 
but  to  me  the  blessing  of  blessings  is  that  I  am  free  of  it. 

Did  I  not  need  humbling  ?  Have  I  not  got  it  ?  Have  I  yet  got 
enough  of  it  ?  That  last  is  the  question.  I  have  felt  in  a  general 
way  as  if  I  should  like  never  to  write  any  line  more  in  the  world. 
Literature  !  Oh  Literature  !  Oh  'that  Literature  had  never  been 
devised  !  Then,  perhaps,  were  I  a  living  man,  and  not  a  half- 
dead  enchanted  spectre-hunted  nondescript. 

On  the  whole,  however,  resting  and  *  lazily  simmering '  will  no 
longer  do.  This  day  I  must  begin  writing  again— article — bad 
luck  to  it  — on  Sir  Walter  Scott,  for  Mill's  Review.  I  retui-n,  not 
like  a  warrior  to  his  battle-field,  but  like  a  galley-slave  scourged 
back  by  the  whip  of  necessity.  Surely  in  a  few  years  I  shall 
either  get  out  of  this  dreadful  state  by  some  alleviation,  or  else 
die  and  sink  under  it.  I  feel  in  general  that  my  only  hope  is  to 
die.     Take  up  the  oar,  however,  and  tug,  since  it  must  be  so. 

The  Scott  article  was  written  as  it  appears  unaltered  in 
the  *  Miscellanies.'  Carlyle  was  not  himself  pleased  with 
it,  and  found  the  task  at  one  moment  disgusting.  He  be- 
«ran  it  with  indifference.  The  *  steam  got  up,'  and  he  fell 
into  what  he  called  *the  old,  sham  happy,  nervously  ex- 
cited mood  too  well  known  to  him.'  The  world  was  sat- 
isfied, and  what  such  a  man  as  Carlyle  had  deliberately  to 
say  about  Scott  will  always  be  read  with  interest ;  but  he 


lOi  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

evidently  did  not  take  to  the  subject  with  cordial  sym- 
pathy. A  man  so  sternly  in  earnest  could  never  forgive 
Sir  Walter  for  squandering  such  splendid  gifts  on  amus- 
ing people,  and  for  creating  a  universal  taste  for  amuse- 
ment of  that  description.  He  did  not  perhaps  improve 
his  humour  by  reading,  while  he  was  writing  the  paper, 
the  strongest  imaginable  contrast  to  the  '  Waverley  Nov- 
els,' Dante's  '  Inferno.'  He  found  Dante  '  uphill  work,' 
'but  a  great  and  enduring  thing.'  'It  is  worth  noting,'  he 
says  with  a  glance  at  Scott,  '  how  loth  we  are  to  read  great 
works ;  how  much  more  willingly  we  cross  our  legs,  back 
to  candles,  feet  to  fire,  over  some  "  Pickwick  "  or  lowest 
trash  of  that  nature.  The  reason  is,  we  are  very  indolent, 
very  wearied,  and  forlorn,  and  read  oftenest  chiefly  that 
we  may  forget  ourselves.  Consider  what  popularity  in 
that  case  must  mean.' 

Signs  appeared,  nevertheless,  that  the  public  could  now 
find  something,  either  amusement  or  instruction,  or  pleas- 
ure of  some  kind,  in  Carlyle's  own  writings.  The  '  French 
Revolution '  had  made  an  alteration  in  this  respect.  The 
publishers  spoke  to  him  about  reprinting  '  Sartor,'  about 
an  edition  of  his  collected  articles.'  The  question  had  be- 
come one  of  terms  only,  for  the  risk  could  be  ventured. 
'  Changed  times,'  as  he  half  bitterly  observed  to  his 
mother.  '  Eraser  sent  for  me  the  other  day  to  propose 
that  he  should  reprint  Teufelsdrockh  and  my  review  arti- 
cles collected  into  volumes.  The  wind  has  chans^ed  there 
at  any  rate.  The  last  time  he  heard  of  Teufelsdrockh  he 
shrieked  at  the  very  notion.  Seriously  it  is  good  news 
this,  an  infallible  sign  that  the  other  book  prospers — nay, 
still  better,  a  sign  that  I  shall  either  now  or  at  some  time 
get  a  little  cash  by  these  poor  scattered  papers.  I  have  re- 
solved that  Fraser,  for  his  old  scream'' s  sake  and  for  my  own 
sake,  shall  not  have  the  printing  of  the  volumes  without 
some  very  respectable  sum  of  money  now,  and  not  screams.' 


Sterling  and  Goethe.  105 

Sterling  had  gone  abroad  again  for  tlie  winter,  and  with 
liim  the  correspondence  was  renewed.  He  was  deeply  at- 
tached to  Sterling,  and  his  letters  to  him  are  always  char- 
acteristic. They  Iiad  disputed,  it  seems,  about  Goethe, 
Sterling  refusing,  as  it  seemed,  to  see  Goethe  as  Carlyle 
saw  him,  and  holding  to  the  theory  common  in  England 
about  a  great  intellect  with  a  depraved  heart,  &c. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chelsea:  December  25,  1837. 

Nothing  can  equal  my  languor,  my  silent  stagnation.  In  this 
state  I  wrote  a  long  rigmarole  on  Walter  Scott,  a  thing  deserving 
instant  fire-death.  No  mortal  could  have  less  wdsh  to  speak  a  syl- 
lable about  Scott,  or  indeed  about  anything  in  heaven  or  in  earth, 
than  I  then  and  now.  But  the  will  of  destiny  must  be  obeyed. 
My  sole  wish  is  that  I  could  get  to  hold  my  tongue  for  twelve 
months  to  come.  It  is  a  wish  and  almost  a  necessity,  for  which  I 
am  occasionally  devising  schemes. 

"We  will  go  on  hoping — the  thing  that  I  used  to  call  *  desperate 
hope.*  Nay,  on  the  whole,  I  really  do  always  believe  that  I  am 
on  the  way  towards  peace  and  health,  both  of  body  and  mind.  I 
go  along  like  a  planet  Juj^iter  with  his  five  belts,  which  are  sup- 
posed to  be  five  storm-zones  full  of  tempests,  rain,  and  thimder 
and  lightning,  Jupiter  himself  very  ti-anquilly  progi-essing  in  the 
middle  of  them.  There  !  see  if  you  can  do  the  like.  Yon  clear 
Phosphorus  smiling  always  in  the  sun's  face,  clear  Mercury  living 
always  in  the  Sun's  arms,  and  at  a  temperature,  they  say,  hotter 
than  redhot  iron.  Such  planets,  are  they  not  extremely  peculiar 
in  the  world  ?  .  .  .  As  to  Goethe,  no  other  man  whatever,  as 
I  say  always,  has  yet  ascertained  what  Christianity  is  to  us,  and 
what  Paganity  is,  and  all  manner  of  other  anities,  and  been  alive  at 
all  points  in  his  own  year  of  grace  with  the  life  appropriate  to  that. 
This,  in  brief,  is  the  definition  I  have  always  given  of  the  man  since 
I  first  knew  him.  The  sight  of  such  a  man  was  to  me  a  Gospel  of 
Gospels,  and  did  literally,  I  believe,  save  me  from  destruction  out- 
ward and  inward.  We  are  far  parted  now,  but  the  memory  of  him 
shall  be  ever  blessed  to  me  as  that  of  a  deliverer  from  death.  But 
on  the  whole — oh  John  ! — what  a  belief  thou  host  in  the  devil !  I 
declare  myself  an  entire  sceptic  in  that  faith.  Was  there,  is  there, 
or  will  there  be  a  great  intellect  ever  heard  tell  of  without  first  a 


106  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

true  and  great  heart  to  begin  with  ?  Never,  if  my  experience  and 
faith  in  this  God's  world  have  taught  me  anything  at  all.  Think 
it  not,  suspect  it  not.  Worse  blasphemy  I  could  not  readily  utter. 
Nay,  look  into  your  own  heart,  and  consider  if  the  devil's  name  is 
darkness^  and  that  only — Eigendunkel :  the  blackest  kind  of  dark- 
ness, and  wicked  enough  for  any  purpose. 

Fear  no  seeing  man,  therefore.  Know  that  he  is  in  heaven,  who- 
ever else  be  not ;  that  the  arch-enemy,  as  I  say,  is  the  arch-stujjid. 
I  call  this  my  fortieth  Church  Article,  which  absorl^s  into  it  and 
covers  up  in  silence  all  the  other  thirty-nine. 

Internally  at  his  own  home  things  were  going  brightly 
with  Carlyle.  It  was  the  coldest  winter  remembered  in 
England,  Murphy's  winter,  w^hen  the  Thames  was  frozen 
from  Oxford  to  Reading;  but  his  wife  remained  well 
without  signs  of  cough,  and  from  all  sides  came  signs  of 
goodwill  for  the  ^ great  writer'  who  was  now  become 
famous.  Scotsbrig  sent  its  barrels  of  meal  and  butter. 
*Alick,'  who,  farming  having  gone  ill  with  him,  had 
started  a  shop  in  Ecclefechan,  sent  an  offering  of  first-rate 
tobacco.  '  Poor  Alick  ! '  his  brother  said,  '  the  first  of  his 
shop  goods :  we  received  them  with  a  most  wistful  thank- 
fulness glad  and  wae.'  This  was  no  more  that  usual ;  but 
Peers  and  Cabinet  Ministers  began  to  show  a  wish  for  a 
nearer  acquaintance  with  a  man  who  was  so  much  talked 
of,  and  a  singular  compliment  was  paid  him  which  later 
history  makes  really  remarkable.  'Some  people,'  he  said, 
'are  beginning  to  imitate  my  style  and  such  like.  The 
"French  Revolution"  I  knew  from  the  first  to  be  savage, 
an  Orson  of  a  book ;  but  the  people  have  seen  that  it  has 
a  genuineness  in  it,  and  in  consideration  of  that  have  par- 
doned all  the  rest.  Coeur-de-Lion  in  the  "Times"  news- 
paper, whom  some  thought  me,  proves  to  be  Ben  Disraeli, 
they  say.  I  saw  three  of  his  things,  and  thought  them 
rather  good,  of  the  grotesque  kind.' 

Among  the  established  'great,'  the  first  who  held  out  a 
hand  was  Mr.  Spring  Pice,  Lord  Monteagle,  afterwards 


Acquaintances  in  t/ic  Great    World.  107 

Chancellor  of  tlio  Exclieqner  in  the  Liberal  Ministry. 
Spring  Kice  was  a  statesman  of  the  strict  official  school, 
not  given  to  Carlyleaii  modes  of  thinking;  but  he  was 
ready  to  welcome  a  man  of  genius,  however  little  he  might 
agree  with  him.  IJis  eldest  son,  Stephen  Spring  Kice, 
wlio  died  before  his  father,  being  untied  to  officiality, 
could  admire  more  freely  ;  and  one  at  least  of  his  sisters 
had  been  a  subscriber  to  the  lectures  on  German  literature. 
Accordingly  there  came  an  invitation  to  Cheyne  Row  to 
an  evening  party.  Carlyle  would  have  refused,  but  his 
wife  insisted  that  he  should  go.  '  X.  brilliant-looking  thing 
it  was,'  he  said,  'all  very  polite.  Marchionesses,  ifec.,'  with 
feelings  exactly  like  ours,  'as  my  dear  mother  said  of  the 
foreign  persons  in  AVilhelm  Meister.' 

But  he  thought  that  Scotsbrig  would  be  interested  in 
hearing  about  the  '  fine  folks '  among  whom  '  Tom  '  was 
beginning  to  move ;  so  he  sent  a  particular  account  of  the 
adventure. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea:  February  15,  183S. 
We  live  quite  quietly  among  a  small  circle  of  people  who  sec  us 
from  time  to  time,  yet  not  so  often  as  usual  iu  the  bitter  weather. 
I  do  not  go  out  much  to  dinners  or  soirCes  ;  Jane  does  not  go  out 
at  all,  not  even  in  the  daytime,  and  accordingly  has  grown  very 
impatient  for  mild  weatlier  again.  However,  she  takes  really 
handsomely  to  her  indoor  life,  and  has  not  been  better,  I  think, 
these  good  many  winters.  We  are  generally  alone  in  the  even- 
ings, tranquil  over  our  books  and  papei-s.  What  ^dsitors  and 
visiting  wo  have  are  in  the  middle  of  the  day.  With  my  will  I 
would  go  out  nowhere  in  the  evening.  It  never  fails  to  do  mo 
more  or  less  harm.  My  most  remarkable  party  for  a  great  while 
was  at  no  smaller  personage's  than — who  think  you  ? — the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer.  I  went  for  the  curiosity,  for  the  honour 
of  the  thing.  I  could  not  help  thinking  :  '  Here  is  the  man  tliat 
disposes  annually  of  the  whole  revenue  of  P^ngland  ;  and  here  is 
another  man  who  has  hardly  enough  cash  to  buy  potatoes  and 
onions  for  himself.     Fortune  has  for  the  time  made  these  two 


108  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

tenants  of  one  drawing-room.'  The  case,  I  believe,  is  that  Miss 
Spring  Rice,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's  eldest  daughter, 
was  one  of  my  German  hearers  last  year,  and  took  a  fancy  for  my 
notability  ;  so  her  mother.  Lady  Theodosia,  was  obliged  to  be  *  at 
home  '  for  me.  The  i^eople  were  very  kind  ;  Spring  Rice  himself 
a  substantial  good-humoured  shifty-looking  man  of  fifty.  The 
rooms  were  genial  with  heat  and  light  as  the  sun  at  noon.  There 
were  high  dames  and  distinguished  males  simmering  about  like 
people  in  the  press  of  a  June  fair.  The  whole  thing  went  off  very 
well,  and  I  returned  about  one  in  the  morning  with  a  headache  that 
served  me  for  more  than  a  day  after.  *  It  will  help  your  lectures,' 
Jane  said.  May  be  so  ;  but  in  the  mean  time  it  has  quite  hindered 
my  natural  sleep  and  composure. 

Windsor  Castle  was  another  novelty  with  which  Carlyle 
made  acquaintance,  having  gone  to  visit  a  young  Mr. 
Edgeworth '  there.  I  mention  this  merely  for  his  char- 
acteristic comment. 

The  Castle  and  outside  are  very  beautiful  indeed,  and  sufficient 
to  lodge  a  much  larger  figure  than  poor  little  Queen  Victory.  The 
kings  hang  there  all  in  rows,  with  their  gauderies  about  them, 
poor  old  King  William  the  last,  like  so  many  shadows  of  a  dream. 
Each  hovers  there  for  a  year  or  two,  and  then  eternity  swallows  him, 
and  he  lies  as  straight  as  old  Wull  Moor,  the  Galloway  Hushel.^ 

Yarious  other  persons  he  fell  in  with,  some  of  whom 
he  had  known  before,  some  whom  he  met  for  the  first 
time.  His  likes  and  dislikes  of  particular  individuals 
tlirow  marked  light  upon  his  own  character.  What  he 
thought  of  Frederick  Maurice  has  been  already  seen. 

The  Maurices  (he  says  again)  are  wearisome  and  happily  rare. 
All  invitations  *  to  meet  the  Maurices '  I,  when  it  is  any  way  pos- 
sible, make  a  point  of  declining.  One  of  the  most  entirely  unin- 
teresting men  of  genius  that  I  can  meet  in  society  is  poor  Maurice 
to  me  ;  all  twisted,  screwed,  wiredrawn,  with  such  a  restless 
sensitiveness,  the  utmost  inability  to  let  nature  have  fair  play  with 
him.  I  do  not  remember  that  a  word  ever  came  from  him  be- 
tokening clear  recognition  or  healthy  free  sympathy  with  any- 

»  Frank  Edgeworth.     See  Life  of  Sterling,  p.  160. 
2  Hnshel,  '  an  old  worn-out  person  or  implement.' 


Tlwnuis  ErsJdne,  109 

thing.  One  must  really  let  him  alone  till  the  prayers  one  does 
oflfer  for  him  (pure-hearted,  earnest  creature  as  he  is)  begin  to 
take  e£fect.  > 

It  was  uot  for  his  hdief  that  Carlyle  felt  misgivings 
about  Maurice,  nor  for  want  of  personal  respect,  but  for 
tlie  strange  obliquity  of  intellect  which  could  tliink  that 
bhick  was  white,  and  white  because  it  was  black,  and  the 
whiter  always,  the  blacker  the  shade.  Genuine  belief 
Carlyle  always  loved  wherever  he  found  it. 

Did  you  ever  see  Thomas  Erskine,  the  Scotch  saint  ?  (he  says  in 
writing  to  his  brother  John).  I  have  seen  him  several  times 
lately,  and  like  him  as  one  would  do  a  draught  of  sweet  rustic 
mead,  served  in  cut  glasses  and  a  silver  tray  ;  one  of  the  gentlest, 
kindliest,  best  bred  of  men.  He  talks  greatly  about  '  Symbols,' 
and  other  Teufelsdrockhiana ;  seems  not  disinclined  to  let  the 
Christian  religion  pass  for  a  kind  of  mythus,  provided  men  can  re- 
tain the  spirit  of  it.  .  .  .  On  the  whole  I  take  up  with  my  old 
love  for  the  Saints.  No  class  of  persons  can  be  found  in  this 
country  with  so  much  humanity  in  them,  nay,  with  as  much  toler- 
ance as  the  better  sort  of  them  have.  The  tolerance  of  others  is 
but  doubt  and  indifference.  Touch  the  thing  they  do  believe  and 
value t  their  own  self-conceit:  tJiey  are  rattlesnakes  then.^ 

Carlyle's  regard  for  Mr.  Erskine  of  Linlathen,  and 
Erskine's  for  him,  ripened  into  an  affection  which  was 
never  clouded  as  long  as  they  both  lived.  Each  felt  that, 
however  they  seemed  to  differ,  they  were  at  one  in  the 
great  battle  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh.  Mrs.  Carlyle 
admired  Erskine  too,  but  scarcely  with  so  entire  a  regard. 
She  spoke  of  him  generally,  in  half-playful  mockery,  as 
St.  Thomas. 

On  the  whole,  in  this  beginning  of  the  year  1838,  Car- 
lyle could  say  of  himself :  '  I  lead  a  strange  dreamy  dawn- 
ering  life  at  present ;  in  general  not  a  little  relieved  and 
quieted,  yet  with  all  the  old  features  of  Burton's  "  melan- 

'  The  italics  are  mine,  for  the  words— true  as  any  Carlyle  ever  spoke — de- 
serve them. 


110  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

cliolie  man : "  to-daj  full  of  peaceable  joy  (ah,  no !  not 
peaceable  entirely  ;  there  is  a  black  look  through  it  still), 
then  to-morrow,  for  no  assignable  cause,  sunk  into  sad- 
ness and  despondency.  But  verily  the  book  has  done  me 
great  good.  It  was  like  a  load  of  fire  burning  up  my 
heart,  which,  by  Heaven's  favour,  I  have  got  thrown  out 
of  me.  IN'ay,  even  in  my  blackest  despondencies,  when 
utter  obstruction  and  extinction  seem  to  threaten  me,  I 
say,  "Well,  it  shall  take  my  life,  but  my  quiescence  it 
shall  spare."  '  And  again,  a  few  days  later,  to  his  brother : 
'  Blessed  be  God,  there  is  a  kind  of  light-gleam  in  the 
inner  man  of  me  which  whoso  will  quietly,  humbly, 
silently  follow,  it  shall  be  well  with  him.  Silently  above 
all.  Why,  therefore,  do  I  now  speak?  In  a  word,  oh 
brother  Jack,  I  do  endeavour  to  thank  Heaven  for  much 
mercy  to  me  on  this  side  also.  Yes,  these  long  years  of 
martyrdom  and  misery,  which  I  would  not  suffer  again  to 
buy  the  world,  were  not  utterly  in  vain.  My  mood  of 
mind  at  present  is  not  nearly  so  wretched.  .1  am  wae^  very 
loae  and  sad,  but  entirely  peaceable ;  and  such  sadness 
seems  almost  as  good  as  joy.  Deliver  me,  ye  Supreme 
Powers,  from  self-conceit ;  ah !  do  this,  and  then  what 
else  is  your  wdll.' 

'  Literature,'  so  the  fates  had  decided,  was  to  remain 
Carlyle's  profession.  He  had  meant  to  abandon  it,  but 
the  cord  which  held  him  to  his  desk,  thougli  strained,  had 
not  broken.  Yet  it  was  a  '  bad  best,'  he  thought,  for  any 
man,  more  trying  to  the  moral  nature,  and  in  his  own  case, 
so  modestly  he  rated  his  powers,  less  likely  to  be  useful, 
than  any  other  honest  occupation.  He  would  still  have 
gladly  entered  the  public  service  if  employment  had  been 
offered  liim,  as  offered  it  would  have  been,  in  any  country 
but  England,  to  a  man  who  had  shown  ability  so  marked. 
He  was  acknowledged  as  a  man  of  genius,  and  in  England 
it  is  assumed  that  for  a  man  of  genius  no  place  can  be 


Miss  Martineau,  111 

found.  He  is  too  good  for  a  low  situation.  He  is  likely 
to  be  troublesome  in  a  higher  one,  and  is  thus  the  one 
man  distinctly  unpromotable.  Foiniun  hahet  in  cornu — 
avoid  him  above  all  men.  Carlyle  had  to  accept  his  lot, 
since  such  had  been  ordered  for  him.  But  his  distaste 
continued,  and  extended  to  other  members  of  the  craft 
who  were  now  courting  his  acquaintance.  He  found  them 
hores^  a  class  of  persons  for  whom  he  had  the  least  charity. 
Even  poor  Miss  Martineau,  sincerely  as  he  at  heart  re- 
spected her,  was  not  welcome  if  she  came  too  often. 

Journal. 
February  19. — All  Saturday  sick  and  nervous.  At  night  IMiss 
Martineau  and  Darwin.  The  visit,  as  most  of  those  from  that  too 
hajipy  and  too  noisy  distinguished  female,  did  nothing  but  mako 
me  miserable.  She  is  a  formulist,  limited  in  the  extreme,  and  for 
the  present  altogether  triumphant  in  her  limits.  The  all-conquer- 
ing smallness  of  that  phenomenon,  victorious  mainly  by  its  small - 
ness,  and  which  not  only  waves  banners  in  its  own  triumph,  but 
insists  on  your  waving  banners  too,  is  at  all  times  nearly  insup- 
portable to  me.  She  said  among  other  things  that  Jesus  Christ 
had  lived,  she  thought,  one  of  the  most  *  joyous '  lives  ;  that  she 
had  once  met  a  man  who  seemed  not  to  believe  fully  in  immor- 
tality. The  trivial  impious  sayings  of  this  extraordinary  man  were 
retailed  to  us  at  boundless  length.  Then  the  martyr  character, 
the  hyi^er-prophetic  altogether  splendid  and  unspeakable  excel- 
lence of  Dr.  Priestley ;  the  regiment  of  American  great  men  ;  the 
(fee,  &c.  Ach  Gott !  I  wish  this  good  Harriet  would  be  happy  by 
herself.  .  .  .  A  small  character,  totu^  teres  atque  rotundus,  is  at 
all  times  very  wearisome.  Fill  it  with  self-conceit,  at  least  with 
an  expectation  of  praise  greater  far  than  you  can  give  it ;  with  a 
notion  of  infallibility  which  you  are  forced  to  conti-adict  inwardly 
at  every  turn,  and  outwardly  as  often  as  the  necessity  of  conversa- 
tion forces  you  to  speak,  a  chai-acter  withal  that  never  by  any 
chance  utters  anything  that  is  new  or  interesting  to  you — it  may 
be  good,  or  it  may  be  better  and  best,  but  you  have  a  right  to  say 
'  it  tires  mo  to  death.  Schnff  es  mtr  vom  Halse.^  The  good  Haiiiet 
admires  me  greatly,  and  is  very  friendly  to  me.  This  is  the  only 
coutmdictory  circumstance.  The  whole  cackle  and  rigmarole  of 
such  an  existence  is  absurd  to  me  whenever  I  see  it. 


112  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

The  Speddings  ^  here  told  me  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  whom  they 
esteemed  a  man  of  real  genius — of  his  falling  out  of  one  high 
possibility  down  through  another  lower,  till  he  had  become  a  poor 
denizen  of  tap-rooms  in  the  village  of  Ambleside — sad  to  hear  of. 
It  often  strikes  me  as  a  question  whether  there  ought  to  be  any 
such  thing  as  a  literary  man  at  all.  He  is  surely  the  wretchedest 
of  all  sorts  of  men.  I  wish  with  the  heart  occasionally  I  had  never 
been  one.  I  cannot  say  I  have  seen  a  member  of  the  guild  whose 
life  seems  to  me  enviable.  A  man^  a  Goethe,  will  be  a  man  on 
paper  too  ;  but  it  is  a  questionable  life  for  him.  Canst  thou  alter 
it  ?     Then  act  it.     Endure  it.     On  with  it  in  silence. 

Let  young  men  who  are  dreaming  of  literary  eminence 
as  the  laurel  wreath  of  their  existence  reflect  on  these 
words.  Let  them  win  a  place  for  themselves  as  high  as 
Carlyle  won,  they  will  find  that  he  was  speaking  no  more 
than  the  truth,  aucl  will  wish,  when  it  is  too  late,  that  they 
had  been  wise  in  time.  Literature — were  it  even  poetry 
— is  but  the  shadow  of  action  ;  the  action  the  reality,  the 
poeti-y  an  echo.  The  '  Odyssey '  is  but  the  ghost  of 
Ulysses— immortal,  but  a  ghost  still ;  and  Homer  himself 
would  have  said  in  some  moods  with  his  own  Achilles — 

Bov\oi[xr]v  K  enapovpos  eoov  $r)T€V€p.€v  aXXco 
'Avbpl  Trap'  a.<\i]p(o,  a  p.Tj  ^iotos  noiXi/s  et?;, 
*H  naaiv  veKvecra-i  KaTa<p6ip.evoiaiv  dvdaaciu. 

Rather  would  I  in  the  sun's  warmth  divine 
Serve  a  poor  churl  who  drags  his  days  in  grief, 
Than  the  whole  lordship  of  the  dead  were  mine. 

Jeffrey,  while  congratulating  his  friend  on  the  success  of 
the  '  French  Eevolution,'  yet  could  see  '  that  the  business 
of  an  author  was  not  the  happiest  or  the  most  healthful 
for  a  person  of  Carlyle's  temper.  Contact  with  the  com- 
mon things  of  life  would  make  him  more  tolerant  of  a 
world  which  -if  not  perfect  w^as  better  than  it  had  ever 

1  Tom  and  James,  sons  of  Mr.  Spedding,  of  Mirehouse,  in  Cumberland. 
Tom  Spedding  succeeded  his  father  in  the  family  propertj^  James,  a  friend 
of  Sterling,  whose  splendid  gifts  were  never  adequately  unfolded,  is  known 
only  to  the  world  as  the  biographer  of  Bacon. 


Second  Course  of  Lectures.  113 

been  before,  and  would  give  him  a  better  chance  of  mend- 
ing it,  while  he  despised  it  less.'  But  it  was  not  to  be, 
and  even  to  Carlyle  authorship  was  better  than  idleness. 
When  he  was  idle  the  acids  ate  into  the  coating  of  his 
soul. 

He  did  nothing  all  the  winter.  With  the  spring  he  had 
to  prepare  liis  second  course  of  lectures. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea:  March  &,  183a 
Lecturing  is  coming  on.  I  am  to  start  and  try  myself  again. 
We  have  a  far  better  room  than  last  year :  an  unexce2>tionable 
room,  all  seated  for  the  purpose,  quiet,  and  lighted  from  the  roof. 
The  only  drawback  is  the  distance — three  miles  from  me,  and 
rather  out  of  the  beat  of  our  fashionable  patrons.*  I  am  to  give 
twelve  lectures  this  year,  and  charge  two  guineas.  If  I  have  a 
good  audience,  it  will  mount  up  fast — one  cannot  say  as  to  that — 
we  must  just  try.  The  subject  is  to  be  the  history  of  literature. 
I  shall  have  to  speak  about  Greeks  and  Romans  first,  then  about 
other  nations — in  short,  about  the  most  remarkable  books  and 
persons  that  I  know.  .  .  .  Wish  me  good  speed,  dear  mother, 
and  do  not  fear  but  I  shall  get  through  it  not  unhandsomely.  I 
have  many  a  good  friend  here,  I  do  believe.  The  proportion  of 
scoundrels  in  London  is  great ;  but  likewise  there  is  a  proportion 
of  better  people  than  you  can  easily  find  in  the  great  world.  Let 
us  keep  our  hearts  quiet,  as  I  say.  Let  us  give  no  ear  to  vain- 
glory, to  self-conceit,  the  wretchedest  of  things,  the  devil's  chief 
•work,  I  think,  here  below. 

I  yesterday  dined  with  Mr.  Erskine,  a  veiy  notable  man  among 
the  religious  people  of  Scotland,  who  seems  to  have  taken  a  con- 
siderable fancy  for  me.  He  is  one  of  the  best  persons  I  have  met 
with  for  many  a  long  year.  We  were  very  cheerful,  a  small  quiet 
jmrty,  and  had  blithe  serious  talk.  I  afterwards,  on  the  way  home, 
went  to  a  sohve  of  Miss  Martineau's.  There  were  fat  people  and  fair 
people,  lords  and  others,  fidgeting,  elbowing,  all  very  braw  and 
hot.  *  Wliat's  ta  use  on't  ? '  I  said  to  myself,  and  came  off  early, 
while  they  were  still  aniving,  at  eleven  at  night.  I  go  as  rarely  as 
I  can  to  such  things,  for  they  always  do  me  ill.  A  book  at  home 
is  suitabler,  with  a  quiet  pipe  twice  in  the  evening,  innocent 

'  The  room  was  in  Edward  Street,  Portman  Square. 

Vol.  IIL--8 


114  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

spoonful  of  porridge  at  ten,  and  bed  at  eleven,  with  such  compos- 
ure as  we  can. 

To  the  Same. 

Chelsea  :  March  30,  1838. 

As  for  me,  I  have  but  one  interest  in  the  wind  at  present,  that 
of  my  lectures.  It  is  like  the  harvest  of  the  whole  year.  I  am 
not  quite  in  such  a  dreadful  fuff  about  it  as  I  was  this  time  twelve- 
months ;  but  it  is  again  agitating  enough,  and  I  think  often  that 
if  I  had  any  money  to  live  upon,  there  is  no  power  in  the  world 
that  would  tempt  me  to  such  a  feat  in  such  circumstances.  Per- 
haps it  is  so  ordered  that  I  have  no  money,  in  order  to  oblige  me 
to  open  my  jaw — I  cannot  say.  I  can  say  only  I  had  infinitely  rather 
continue  keeping  it  shut.  But  on  the  whole  they  have  got  me  a 
lecture-room,  and  I  have  drawn  up  a  scheme  of  my  twelve  lectures 
— two  lectures  a  week,  six  weeks  instead  of  four.  The  subject  is 
about  all  things  in  the  world  ;  the  whole  spiritual  history  of  man, 
from  the  earliest  times  till  now.  Among  my  audience  I  am  likely 
to  have  some  of  the  cleverest  people  in  this  country ;  and  /  to 
speak  to  them.  We  will  fight  it  through  one  way  or  another.  The 
very  pain  of  it  and  miserable  tumbling  connected  with  it  is  a 
kind  of  schooling  for  one.  Thou  must  not  '  tine  heart,'  thou  must 
gird  thyself  into  forced  composure.  This  is  the  season,  this  and 
onwards  till  midsummer,  when  London  is  most  thronged  with 
people,  with  meetings  and  speeches,  with  dinners,  parties,  balls, 
and  doings.  I  know  not  what  I  should  do  if  I  were  to  become  an 
established  popular.  With  the  popularity  I  have  it  is  almost  like 
to  be  too  hard  for  me  at  times.  Nothing  naturally  seems  to  me 
more  entirely  wretched  and  barren  than  the  life  of  people  literary 
and  others,  that  give  themselves  up  to  that  sort  of  matter  here. 
I  firmly  believe  it  to  be  the  darkest  curse  God  lays  upon  a  man  or 
woman.  Carrying  the  beggar's  wallet  I  take  to  be  bad,  but  far 
from  so  bad.  The  very  look  of  the  face  of  one  of  these  peoj^le 
seems  to  say,  '  Avoid  me  if  thou  be  wise.'  '  Dinna  gang  to  dad 
tysel'  a'  abroad,'  said  Lizzie  Herd  to  WuU  once,  and  I  many  times 
remember  the  precept  here.  '  To  be  dadded  a'  abroad '  is  per- 
cisely  the  thing  I  want  above  all  things  to  avoid. 

As  to  the  people  I  see,  the  best  class  of  all  are  the  religious  peo- 
ple, certain  of  whom  have  taken,  very  strangely,  a  kind  of  affection 
for  me,  in  spite  of  my  contradictions  toward  them.  It  teaches  me 
again  that  the  best  of  this  class  is  the  best  one  will  find  in  any 
class  whatsoever.      The  Eadical  members,   and  ambitious  vain 


Popxdaritij  cmd  the  Value  of  it.  115 

political  people,  and  literary  people,  and  fashionable  people  are  to 
be  avoided  in  comparison.  One  of  the  best  men  I  have  seen  for 
many  a  year  is  Thomas  Ei-skine,  a  gentleman  of  great  fortune  and 
celebrated  in  the  religions  world.  Most  strange  it  is  how  such  a 
man  has  taken  to  me.  Nay,  he  has  been  heard  to  say  that  *  very 
few  of  them  are  at  bottom  so  orthodox  as  Carlyle.'  What  thiiA. 
you  of  that  ? 

I  tell  you  nothing  of  the  tilings  they  continue  to  tell  me  about 
my  book.  When  grand  people  and  beautiful  people  pay  me  grand 
beautiful  compliments,  and  I  grope  in  my  pocket  and  find  that  I 
have  80  few  pounds  sterling  there  to  meet  my  poor  wants  with,  I 
can  but  say  with  Sandy  CJorrie  *  What's  ta  use  on't  ? '  or  with  the 
cow  in  the  fable, 

Gie  me  a  pickle  pease  strae. 

The  first  set  of  lectures  Carljle  had  been  obliged  to 
deliver  out  of  his  acquired  knowledge,  having  no  leisure  to 
do  more.  For  the  second  he  prepared  carefully,  especially 
the  Greek  and  lionian  parts.  Classics  are  not  the  strong 
point  of  an  Edinburgh  education,  and  the  little  which  he 
had  learned  there  >vas  rusty.  '  I  have  read  Thucydides 
and  Herodotus,'  he  wrote  in  April,  ^part  of  Niebuhr, 
Michelet,  &c.,  the  latter  two  with  small  fruit  and  much 
disappointment,  the  former  two  not.  I  should  have  several 
good  things  to  say  and  do  very  well  were  I  in  health,  were 
I  in  brass.'  But  trouble  had  come  into  Cheyne  Row 
again.  Without  any  definite  ailment,  Mrs.  Carlyle  seemed 
unwell  in  mind  and  body.  There  was  even  a  thought  of 
sending  her  to  Italy  when  the  lectures  were  over,  if  there 
were  means  to  do  it.  Carlyle  even  thought  of  going 
thither  himself,  or  at  any  rate  of  leaving  London  alto- 
gether. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  April  13,  1838. 

Jane  keeps  very  quiet,  and  suffers  what  is  inevitable  as  well  as 

j)os8ible.     I  fancy  Italy,  as  you  say,  might  be  of  real  service  to  her. 

To  me  also  the  one  thing  needful  seems  that  of  getting  into  any 

tranquil  region  under  or  above  the  sun.    Positively  at  times  tho 


116  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

whirl  of  this  dusty  deafening  chaos  gets  into  the  insupportable 
category.  There  is  a  shivering  precipitancy  in  me  which  makes 
emotion  of  any  kind  a  thing  to  be  shunned.  It  is  my  nei^ves,  my 
nerves.  The  poor  chaos  is  bad  enough,  but  with  nerves  one  might 
stand  it.  There  are  symptoms  of  capability  to  grow  a  lion  by-and- 
by.  Fluch  dem  !  Good  never  lay  there,  lie  where  it  might.  Also  I 
imagine  it  possible  I  might  learn  to  subsist  myself  here,  earning 
the  small  needful  of  money  literally  with  my  heart's  blood.  You 
can  fancy  it  with  such  a  nervous  system  as  I  have  ;  the  beautiful 
and  brave  saying  in  their  sumptuosity  here  and  there,  '  Oh  Thomas, 
what  an  illustrious  character  thou  art ! '  and  Thomas  feeling  in  his 
breast  for  comfort  and  finding  bilious  fever ;  in  his  pocket,  and 
finding  emptiness  ;  round  him  for  fellowship,  and  finding  solitude, 
ghastly  and  grinning  masks.  But  I  do  on  the  whole  adhere  to  one 
thing,  that  of  holding  my  peace.  I  really  am  better  too  in  the  in- 
ward heart  of  me.  There  is  no  danger  of  man,  I  feel  always,  while 
his  heart  is  not  mad. 

Going  through  the  Green  Park  yesterday,  I  saw  her  little 
Majesty  taking  her  bit  of  departure  for  Windsor.  I  had  seen 
her  another  day  at  Hyde  Park  Corner,  coming  in  from  the  daily 
ride.  She  is  decidedly  a  pretty-looking  little  creature  :  health, 
clearness,  graceful  timidity,  looking  out  from  her  young  face, 
'frail  cockle  on  the  black  bottomless  deluges.'  One  could  not 
help  some  interest  in  her,  situated  as  mortal  seldom  was. 

In  the  evening  a  Bullerian  rout.  'Dear  Mrs.  Eigmarole,  the 
distinguished  female;  great  Mr.  Eigmarole,  the  distinguished 
male.'  Radical  Grote  was  the  only  novelty,  for  I  had  never 
noticed  him  before — a  man  with  strait  upper  lip,  large  chin, 
and  open  mouth  (spout  mouth)  ;  for  the  rest,  a  tall  man  with  dull 
thoughtful  brows  and  lank  dishevelled  hair,  greatly  the  look  of  a 
prosperous  Dissenting  minister. 

Your  notions  about  Rome  for  us  are  in  their  vagueness  quite 
analogous  to  mine.  Jane  takes  very  kindly  to  your  scheme.  As 
for  me,  I  know  only  that  I  should  infinitely  rejoice  to  be  quiet 
anywhere.  I  think  I  will  not  stay  here  to  have  the  brain  burnt 
out  of  me.  I  will  go  out  of  this.  Jane  likes  it  far  better  than  I. 
Indeed,  was  it  not  for  her,  I  might  quite  easily  cut  and  run  before 
long ;  which  at  bottom,  I  admit,  were  perhaps  not  good  for  me. 

This  letter  indicates  no  pleasant  condition  of  mind,  not 
a  condition  in  wliicli  it  could  have  been  agreeable  to  take 


SeeoiuL  Course  of  Lectures.  117 

to  the  platform  again  and  deliver  lectnres.  But  Carlyle 
could  command  himself  when  necessary,  however  severe 
the  burden  that  was  weighing  upon  him.  This  time  he 
succeeded  brilliantly,  far  better  than  on  his  first  experi- 
Ufient.  The  lectures  were  reported  in  the  'Examiner'  and 
other  papers,  and  can  be  recovered  there  by  the  curious, 
lie  did  not  himself  reprint  them,  attaching  no  importance 
to  what  he  called  '  a  mixture  of  prophecy  and  play-acting.' 
It  will  suffice  here  to  observe  what  he  said  himself  on  the 
subject  at  the  time. 

Journal. 

May  15,  1838  —Delivered  yesterday,  at  the  Lecture  Rooms,  17 
Edward  Street,  Portman  Square,  a  lecture  on.  Dante,  the  fifth 
there.  Seven  more  are  yet  to  come.  A  curious  audience;  a 
curious  business.  It  has  been  all  mismanaged ;  yet  it  prospers 
better  than  I  expected  once.  The  conditions  of  the  thing  !  Ah, 
the  conditions  !  It  is  like  a  man  singing  through  a  fleece  of  wool. 
One  must  submit ;  one  must  stiTiggle  and  sing  even  so,  since  not 
otherwise.  I  sent  my  mother  off  a  newspaper.  Hunt's  criticism 
no  longer  friendly ;  not  so  in  spirit,  though  still  in  letter ;  a 
shade  of  spleen  in  it ;  very  natural,  flattering  even.  He  finds  me 
grown  to  be  a  something  now.  His  whole  way  of  life  is  at  death- 
variance  with  mine.  In  the  'Examiner'  he  expresses  himself 
afflicted  with  my  eulogy  of  thrift,  and  two  days  ago  he  had  multa 
gemens  to  borrow  two  sovereigns  of  me.  It  is  an  unreasonable 
existence  gam  und  gar.  Happily  I  have  next  to  nothing  to  do 
with  Hunt,  with  him  or  with  his.     Felix  sit/ 

Saturday,  May  20. — Yesterday  lectured  on  Cervantes  and  the 
Spaniards,  a  huiried  loose  flowing  but  earnest  wide-reaching  sort 
of  thing,  which  the  people  liked  better  than  I.  The  business  is 
happily  half  done  now.     Tliat  is  the  happiest  part  of  it. 

May  31. — Lecture  on  Luther  and  the  Reformation ;  then  on 
Shakespeare  and  John  Knox,  my  best  hitherto  ;  finally  on  Voltaire 
and  French  scepticism,  the  worst,  as  I  compute,  of  all.  To-morrow 
is  to  be  Lecture  10,  on  Johnson,  &e.  There  an^  then  but  two  re- 
maining. On  the  Voltaire  day  I  was  stupid  and  sick  beyond  ex- 
pression; also  I  did  not  like  the  man,  a  fatal  cirenmstance  of 
itself.    I  had  to  hover  vaguely  on  the  surface.    The  people  seemed 


118  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

content  enough.  I  myself  felt  sincerely  disgusted.  That  is  the 
word.  To-morrow  perhaps  we  shall  do  better.  It  is  one  of  the 
saddest  conditions  of  this  enterprise  to  feel  that  you  have  missed 
what  you  meant  to  say ;  that  your  image  of  a  matter  you  had  an 
image  of  remains  yet  with  yourself,  and  a  false  impotent  scrawl  is 
what  the  hearers  have  got  from  you.  This  too  has  to  be  suffered, 
since  the  attempt  was  necessary  and  not  possible  otherwise.  Our 
audience  sits  entirely  attentive — a  most  kind  audience — and  seems 
to  have  almost  doubled  since  we  began.  Courage !  On  the 
Shakespeare  day  I  entered  all  palpitating,  fluttered  with  sleep- 
lessness and  drug-taking,  with  visitors,  and  the  fatal  et  ccetera  of 
things. 

News  from  Jack  above  a  week  ago  that,  probably  he  is  not  coming 
to  us  this  summer.  Alas  !  alas  !  I  had  counted  on  the  true  brother 
to  commune  with  a  little ;  to  break  the  utter  solitude  of  heart  in 
which  I  painfully  live  here.  Lonelier  probably  is  no  man.  Ai/  de 
7711 !  and  now  he  is  not  coming.  This  also  is  not  to  be  granted  us. 
He  says  we  must  come  to  Italy  for  the  winter.  We  think  of  it. 
My  unhappy  sick  wife  might  be  benefited  by  it.  For  me  the  ciy 
of  my  soul  is,  '  For  the  love  of  God  let  me  alone  ; '  or  rather  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  cry,  and  sunk  down  into  a  voiceless  prayer,  which 
knows  it  will  not  be  granted.  Hardly  a  day  has  passed  since  I 
returned  hither  in  autumn  last,  in  which  I  have  not  stormfully  re- 
solved to  myself  that  I  would  go  out  of  this  dusty  hubbub,  should 
I  even  walk  off  with  the  staff  in  my  hands,  and  no  loadstar  what- 
ever. My  wife,  herself  seemingly  sinking  into  weaker  and  weaker 
health,  points  out  to  me  always  that  I  cannot  go ;  that  I  am  tied 
here,  seemingly  as  if  to  be  tortured  to  death.  So  in  my  wild  mood 
I  interpret  it.  Silence  on  such  subjects !  Oh !  how  infinitely 
preferable  is  silence  !  Perhaps,  too,  my  wife  is  right.  Indeed,  I 
myself  feel  dimly  that  I  have  little  to  look  for  else  than  here.  Be 
still,  thou  wild  weak  heart,  convulsively  bursting  up  against  the 
bars.  Silence  alone  can  guide  me.  Suffer,  suffer,  if  it  be  neces- 
sary so  to  learn.  Last  night,  weary  and  worn  out  with  dull  block- 
headism,  chagrin  (next  to  no  sl6ep  the  night  before),  I  sate  down 
in  St.  James's  Park  and  thought  of  these  things,  looking  at  the 
beautiful  summer  moon,  and  really  quieted  myself,  became  peace- 
able and  submissive  for  the  tijne — for  the  time ;  and  afterwards, 
alas  !  I  was  provoked,  and  in  my  weak  state  said  foolish  words 
and  went  sorrowful  to  bed.  I  am  a  feeble  fool.  Fool,  wilt  thou 
never  be  wise  ? 


Scrond  Course  of  Lectures.  119 

Tho  excitement  of  lecturing,  so  elevating  and  agreeable 
to  most  men,  seemed  only  to  depress  and  irritate  Carlyle. 
He  was  anxious  about  many  things,  his  brain  was  over- 
wrought, his  nerves  set  on  edge.  In  this  condition  even 
liis  dearest  friends  ceased  to  please  him.     He  goes  on : — 

Breakfast  one  morning  lately  at  Milnes's,  with  Landor,  Rogers, 
T.  Moore,  &c.  A  brilliant  firework  of  wits,  worth  being  fretted 
into  fever  with  for  once.  Dinner  that  same  day,  if  I  remember, 
22nd  of  May,  at  Marshall's,  Grosvenor  Street,  the  wealthiest  of 
houses,  the  people  hearers  of  mine.  Empson,  the  Sj)ring  Bices, 
there ;  Miss  Spring  Rice,  especially,  very  brilliant,  exciting. 
Such  happiness  is  purchased  too  dear.  Dull  dinner  the  day  before 
yesterday — indeed,  liinc  illcE  lacrymoe,  for  I  had  a  cup  of  green  tea 
too — at  the  Wilsons';  Spedding,  Maurice,  John  Sterling,  and 
women.  Ah  me !  Sterling  particularly  argumentative,  babbla- 
tive, and  on  the  whole  unpleasant  and  unprofitable  to  me.  Memo- 
randum not  to  dine  where  he  is  soon,  without  cause.  He  is  much 
spoiled  since  last  year  by  really  no  great  quantity  of  praise  and 
flattery  ;  restless  as  a  whirling  tormentum  ;  superficial,  ingenious, 
of  endless  semifrothy  utterance  and  argument.  Keep  out  of  his 
way  till  he  mend  a  little.  A  finer  heart  was  seldom  seen  than 
dwells  in  Sterling,  but,  alas  !  under  what  conditions  ?  Ego  et  Rex 
mens.  That  is  the  tune  we  all  sing.  Down  with  ego  !  Enough 
written  for  one  day.     I  am  very  sickly,  but  silent. 

The  lecture  course  was  perhaps  too  prolonged.  Twelve 
orations  such  as  Carlyle  was  delivering  were  beyond  the 
strength  of  any  man  who  meant  every  word  that  he 
uttered.  It  ended,  however,  with  a  blaze  of  fireworks — 
'  people  weeping '  at  the  passionately  earnest  tone  in  which 
for  once  they  heard  themselves  addressed.  The  money 
result  was  nearly  300/.,  after  all  expenses  had  been  paid. 
'  A  great  blessing,'  as  Carlyle  said,  *  to  a  man  that  liad 
been  haunted  by  the  squalid  spectre  of  beggary.'  There 
were  prospects  of  improved  finances  from  other  quarters 
too.  Notwithstanding  all  the  talk  about  the  *  French 
Revolution,'  nothing  yet  had  been  realized  for  it  in  Eng- 
land, but  Emerson  held  out  hopes  of  remittances  on  the 


120  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

American  edition.  '  Sartor,'  '  poor  beast,'  as  Mrs.  Carlyle 
called  it,  was  at  last  coming  out  in  a  volume,  and  there 
was  still  a  talk  of  reprinting  the  essays.  But  Carlyle 
was  worn  out.  Fame  brought  its  accompaniments  of  in- 
vitations to  dinner  which  could  not  be  all  refused ;  the 
dinners  brought  indigestions ;  and  the  dog  days  brought 
heat,  and  heat  and  indigestion  together  made  sleep  impos- 
sible. His  letters  to  his  brother  are  full  of  lamentation, 
and  then  of  remorse  for  his  want  of  patience.  At  the 
close  of  a  miserable  declamation  against  everything  under 
the  sun,  he  winds  up  : — 

Last  niglit  I  sat  down  to  smoke  in  my  night-shirt  in  the  back 
yard.  It  was  one  of  the  beautifullest  nights  ;  the  half- mo  on  clear 
as  silver  looked  out  as  from  eternity,  and  the  great  dawn  was 
streaming  up.  I  felt  a  remorse,  a  kind  of  shudder,  at  the  fuss  I 
was  making  about  a  sleepless  night,  about  my  sorrow  at  all,  with 
a  life  so  soon  to  be  absorbed  into  the  great  mystery  above  and 
around  me.  Oh  !  let  us  be  patient.  Let  us  call  to  God  with  our 
silent  hearts,  if  we  cannot  with  our  tongues. 

The  Italian  scheme  dissolved.  It  had  been  but  a  vapour 
which  had  taken  shape  in  the  air  for  a  moment.  Cooler 
weather  came.  The  fever  abated,  and  he  was  able  to  send 
a  pleasant  account  of  the  finish  to  his  mother  the  day 
after  all  was  over.  From  her  he  was  careful  to  conceal 
liis  unquiet  thoughts. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  June  12,  1838. 
The  lectures  went  on  better  and  better,  and  grew  at  last,  or 
threatened  to  grow,  quite  a  flaming  affair.  I  had  people  greeting 
yesterday.  I  was  quite  as  well  pleased  that  we  ended  then  and  did 
not  make  any  further  racket  about  it.  I  have  too  good  evidence 
(in  poor  Edward  Irving's  case)  what  a  racket  comes  to  at  last,  and 
want  for  my  share  to  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  such  things. 
The  success  of  the  thing,  taking  all  sides  of  it  together,  seems  to 
have  been  very  considerable,  far  greater  than  I  at  all  expected, 
My  audience  was  supposed  to  be  the  best,  for  rank,  beauty,  and 
intelligence,  ever  collected  in  London.    I  had  bonnie  braw  dames. 


Results  of  L<< tares,  121 

IjaJios  this,  Lmlies  tliat,  though  I  dared  not  look  at  them  for  fear 
they  shoukl  put  me  out.  I  had  old  men  of  four  score ;  men 
middle-aged,  witli  fine  steel-grey  beards  ;  young  men  of  the  Uni- 
vei-sities,  of  the  law  profession,  all  sitting  quite  mum  there,  and 
the  Annandale  voice  gollying  at  them.  Very  strange  to  consider. 
They  proposed  giving  me  a  dinner,  some  of  them,  but  I  declined 
it.  •  Literary  Institutions '  more  than  one  expressed  a  desire  that 
I  would  lecture  for  them,  but  this  also  (their  wages  being  small 
and  their  lectures  generally  despicable)  I  decline.  My  health  did 
not  suffer  so  much  as  I  had  reason  to  dread.  I  was  awaking  at 
three  in  the  morning  when  the  thing  began,  but  afterwards  I  got 
to  sleep  till  seven,  and  even  till  eight,  and  did  not  suffer  nearly  so 
much.     I  am  no  doubt  shaken  and  stirred  up  considerably  into  a 

*  raised '  state  which  I  like  very  ill,  but  in  a  few  days  I  shall  get 
still  enough,  and  probably  even  too  still.  One  must  work  either 
with  long  moderate  pain  or  else  with  short  great  pain.  The  short 
way  is  best  according  to  my  notion. 

As  usual,  the  first  thought  with  Carlyle  wlien  in  posses- 
sion of  his  'riches'  was  to  send  a  present  to  Scotsbrig. 
He  enclosed  5Z.  to  his  niotlier,  to  be  divided  among  his 
sisters  and  herself,  a  sovereign  to  each.  Thej  were  to  buy 
bonnets  with  it,  or  any  other  piece  of  finery,  and  call  them 

*  The  Lecture.'  On  July  27th  he  wrote  at  length  to  his 
brother  John. 

Chelsea  :  July  27, 1838. 
The  lectures  terminated  quite  triumphantly.  Thank  Heaven  ! 
It  seems  pretty  generally  expected  that  I  am  to  lecture  next  year 
again,  and  subsequent  years,  having,  as  they  say,  made  a  new  pro- 
fession for  myself.  If  dire  famine  drive  me,  I  must  even  lecture, 
but  not  otherwise.  Whoever  he  may  be  that  wants  to  get  into  the 
centre  of  a  fuss,  it  is  not  I.  Freedom  under  the  blue  sky — ah  me  ! 
with  a  bit  of  brown  bread  and  peace  and  pepticity  to  eat  it  with, 
this  for  my  money  before  all  the  glory  of  Portman  Square,  or  the 
solar  system  itself.  But  we  must  take  what  we. can  get  and  be 
thankful.  After  the  lectures  came  a  series  of  dinner-work  and 
racketings ;  came  hot  weather,  coronation  uproare,  and  at  length 
sleeplessness,  collapse,  inertia,  and  at  times  almost  the  feeling  of 
nonentity.  I  like  that  existence  very  ill ;  my  nerves  are  not  made 
for  it.    I  correcteil  a  few  proof  sheets.     I  read  a  few  books,  dull 


122  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

as  Lethe.  I  have  done  nothing  else  whatever  that  I  could  help, 
except  live.  Frequently  a  little  desire  for  some  travel,  a  notion 
that  change  of  scene  ^and  objects  would  be  wholesome,  has  come 
upon  me ;  but  in  my  condition  of  absolute  imbecility,  especially 
in  the  uncertainty  we  stood  in  as  to  your  movements,  nothing  could 
be  done.  The  weather  has  now  grown  cool.  I  find  it  tolerable 
enough  to  lounge  at  Chelsea  for  the  time.  My  digestion  is  very 
bad  ;  I  should  say,  however,  that  my  heart  and  life  is  on  the  whole 
sounder  than  it  was  last  year.  Now,  too,  all  is  getting  very  quiet ; 
streets  quite  vacant  within  these  two  weeks.  I  am  not  like  to  stir 
from  this  unless  driven.  As  for  Jane,  she  is  much  improved ;  in- 
deed, almost  well  since  summer  came.  She  does  not  wish  to  stir 
from  her  quarters  at  all. 

The  Americans  are  getting  out  'Carlyle's  miscellanies.'  I  know 
not  whether  I  shall  not  import  two  hundred  copies  or  so  of  this 
edition  and  save  myself  the  trouble  of  editing  here.  The  matter 
is  as  good  as  obsolete  to  me.  There  is  no  bread  or  other  profit  in 
it.  The  Swedenborgians  have  addressed  a  small  book  and  letters 
to  me  here.  The  New  Catholics  are  making  advances.  Jane  says 
I  am  fated  to  be  the  nucleus  for  all  the  mad  people  of  my  gen- 
eration. 

John  Sterling  wanted  me  to  accept  a  dinner  from  some  Cam- 
bridge men,  then  to  go  with  him  to  Cambridge  for  three  days, 
then  to  &c.,  &c.;  lastly,  to  go  this  same  week  down  to  Julius  Hare's 
and  bathe  in  the  sea.  The  sea  was  tempting.  Hare  too,  whom  I 
have  seen,  is  a  likeable  kind  of  man.  But  vis  inertice  prevailed, 
and  to  this,  as  to  all  the  rest,  I  answered  :  '  Impossible,  dear  Ster- 
ling.' Indeed,  John  is  dreadfully  locomotive  since  his  return. 
Some  verses  printed  in  Blackwood,  and  a  considerable  bluster  of 
Wilson's  about  them,  have  sorrowfully  discomposed  our  poor  John, 
and  proved  what  touchy  and  almost  flimsy  stuff  there  must  be  in 
him.  I  love  him  as  before,  but  keep  rather  out  of  his  way  at 
present. 

Mill  is  plodding  along  at  his  dull  Review  under  dull  auspices, 
restricts  himself  to  the  Fox  Taylor  circle  of  Socinian  Eadicalism— 
a  lamed  cause  at  this  time — and  very  rarely  shows  face  here.  His 
editor,  one  Eobertson,  a  burly  Aberdeen  Scotchman  of  seven-and- 
twenty,  full  of  laughter,  vanity,  pepticity,  and  hope,  amuses  me 
sometimes  considerably  more.  He  *  desires  exceedingly  that  I 
would  do  something  for  the  October  number.'  My  desire  that 
way  is  faint  indeed.     How  many  things  in  this  world  do  not  smell 


Hemdta  of  Lectures.  123 

sweet  to  me  !  To  how  many  things  is  one  tempted  to  say  with 
emphasis,  ' Du  Galgenansf  (Thou  gallows-carrion).  There  is  some 
relief  to  me  in  a  word  like  that.  But  pauca  verba,  as  Nym  has  it. 
I  told  all  the  people  in  those  lectures  of  mine  that  no  speech  ever 
uttered  or  utterable  was  worth  comparison  with  silence.  John 
Sterling  in  particular  could  not  understand  it  in  the  least,  but  has 
it  still  sticking  in  him  indigestible. 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

T.  CABLYIiE. 


CHAPTER  yi. 

A.D.  1838-9.     MT.  43-44. 

Visit  to  Kirkcaldy — Sees  Jeffrey — *  Sartor ' — ^Night  at  Manchester 
— Eemittances  from  Boston — Proposed  article  on  Cromwell — 
•  Want  of  books — London  Library — Breakfast  with  Monckton 
Milnes — Third  course  of  Lectures — Chartism — Eadicalism — 
Correspondence  with  Lockhart — Thirlwall — Gift  of  a  horse — 
Summer  in  Scotland — First  journey  on  a  railway. 

Carlyle's  annual  migrations  were  like  those  of  Mrs. 
Primrose  from  the  blue  room  to  the  brown — from  Lon- 
don to  Scotland.  Thither  almost  always,  seldom  any- 
where else.  He  had  meant  to  stay  all  through  the 
summer  in  Chelsea,  but  an  invitation  from  his  friends, 
the  Ferguses  at  Kirkcaldy,  tempted  him,  and  in  the 
middle  of  August  he  went  by  Leith  steamer  to  the  old 
place  where  he  had  taught  little  boys,  and  fallen  in  love 
with  Miss  Gordon,  and  rambled  with  Edward  Irving.  It 
was  '  melodiously  interesting,'  he  said.  He  bathed  on  the 
old  sands.  He  had  a  horse  which  carried  him  through 
the  old  familiar  scenes.  While  at  Kirkcaldy  he  crossed 
to  Edinburgh  and  called  on  Jeffrey. 

He  sat  waiting  for  me  at  Moray  Place.  We  talked  long  in  the 
style  of  literary  and  philosophic  clitter-clatter.  Finally  it  was 
settled  that  I  should  go  out  to  dinner  with  him  at  Craigcrook,  and 
not  return  to  Fife  till  the  morrow.  At  the  due  hour  I  joined  the 
Duke  *  at  his  town  house,  and  we  walked  out  together  as  in  old 
times.  The  Empsons  were  still  there.  Mrs.  Jeffrey  and  they 
welcomed  me  all  alone.     The  evening  was  not,  on  the  whole,  equal 

*  The  Carlyle  name  for  Jeffrey  was  Duke  ot  Craigcrook. 


Lett&i's  from  Home,  125 

to  a  good  solitary  one.  The  Dnke  talked  immensely,  and  made 
me  talk ;  but  it  struck  me  that  he  was  grown  weaker.  We  seemed 
to  have  made  up  our  nunds  not  to  contradict  each  other ;  but  it 
was  at  the  expense  of  saying  nothing  intimate.  My  esteem  for 
Jeflfrey  could  not  hide  from  me  that  at  bottom  our  speech  was,  as 
I  said,  clatter.  In  fact,  he  is  becoming  an  amiable  old  fribble, 
very  cheerful,  very  heartless,  very  forgettable  and  tolerable. 

After  a  week  or  too  in  Fife  he  made  for  Scotsbrig, 
where  news  met  him  that  50Z.  had  been  sent  from  America 
as  a  royalty  on  the  edition  of  the  *  French  Revolution,' 
and  that  more  would  follow.  *  What  a  touching  thing  is 
that ! '  he  said.  *  One  prays  that  the  blessing  of  him  that 
was  rather  ill  off  may  be  with  them,  these  good  friends. 
Courage !  I  feel  as  if  one  might  grow  to  be  moderately 
•content  with  a  lot  like  mine.' 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  September  1.5,  183a 
Many  thanks  for  those  bright  little  letters  you  sent  me.  They 
are  the  liveliest  of  letters,  which  gives  me  pleasure,  because  it 
shows  a  lively  Goody,  cheerful  and  well.  They  send  good  news 
otherwise  too,  and  seem  to  have  the  faculty  of  finding  good  news 
to  send.  Our  mother  charges  me  to  thank  you  most  emphatically 
for  your  letters  to  her,  which  made  her  *  as  light  as  a  feather  all 
day.'  She  says,  *  Whatever  sort  of  mother-in-law  she  be,  you  are 
the  best  of  daughters-in  law.'  Such  a  swift-despatching  little 
Goody  !  Drive  about  while  you  can,  and  keep  your  heart  light, 
and  be  well  when  I  come. 

At  Edinburgh  I  wanted  a  copy  of  *  Sartor,'  *  poor  beast ! '  They 
had  got  no  copy,  had  never  heard  of  it,  and  only  then  wrote  off 
for  some.  Depend  on  it,  therefore,  my  bonny  little  Bairn,  all 
these  vague  things  they  tell  thee  about  *  Sartor '  are  mere  vague 
blarney  ;  and  think  further  that  we  will  not  care  a  straw  whether 
they  are  or  not.  No.  A  certain  fair  critic  long  ago,  among  the 
I)eat  bogs,  declared  '  Sartor  *  '  to  be  a  work  of  genius  ; '  and  such 
it  is,  and  shall  continue,  though  no  copy  of  it  should  be  seen  these 
hundred  years.  Alick  is  not  altogether  right  yet,  but  much  better 
than  formerly.  His  traffic  prosi)er8  beyond  what  could  be  looked 
for,  and  he  seems  more  quieted,  reconciled  to  his  allotment.    It 


126  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

gives  me  the  strangest  feeling  to  plump  suddenly  into  view  of 
these  conditions  of  existence — hearts  so  kind,  a  lot  so  sequestered, 
the  sweep  of  Time  passing  on  in  these  little  creeks  too,  as  on  the 
wide  sea  where  I  have  to  navigate.  One  can  say  nothing  ;  one's 
heart  is  full  of  unutterabilities.  But  our  whole  life  is  all  great 
and  unutterable  ;  the  little  Ecclefechan  shop,  as  the  gi'and  Napo- 
leon Empire,  is  embosomed  in  eternity  ;  a  little  dream  and  yet  a 
great  reality,  one  even  as  the  other.  Adieu,  dear  life  partner ! 
dear  little  Goody  of  me.     Be  well,  and  love  me. 

Thine,  T.  Cablyle. 

To  the  Same. 

Scotsbrig  :  September  27,  1838. 
MacDiarmid  ^  has  faithfully  paid  me  nine  sovereigns  for  you  for 
Puttock,  which  coins  I  have,  or  will  account  for.  He  has  not 
succeeded  well  this  year  for  the  letting  of  Puttock,  but  has  a 
better  outlook  for  a  near  future.  A  colonel  somebody,  of  Mabie, 
has  the  house  and  game  this  season,  at  the  easy  rate  of  U.,  there 
being  no  game.  But  he  will  preserve  the  game  this  year,  and  in 
future  years  give  10/.,  and  perhaps  plague  us  less  about  it.  As  for 
Goody,  she,  with  MacDiarmid's  instalments  in  her  pocket,  will 
really  be  in  funds  for  the  present,  able  to  bind  *  Revolution  '  books 
and  what  not — considering  the  savings  bank,  too — according  to 
her  own  sweet  will.  Nay,  there  are  other  funds  too,  I  guess— a 
letter  from  your  mother,  wwrefusable,  but  which  seemed  to  me  to 
hold  cash — a  truly  monied  Goody.  ...  I  saw  Burns's  house  ; 
the  little  oblique-angled  hut,  where  the  great  soul  had  to  adjust 
itself,  and  be  a  king  without  a  kingdom.  It  seems  vacant  since 
the  widow's  death.  Some  dirty  children  sat  on  the  door-sill,  and 
the  knocker  seemed  torn  half  off.  The  soul  of  the  man  is  now 
happily  far  away  from  all  that.  Jean  and  Jamie  are  both  as  kind 
as  could  be.  They  are  prosperous  both,  I  think.  Jean  received 
your  parcel  with  great  expressions  of  thankfulness.  Mary,  too,  at 
Annan  was  emphatic  in  her  gratitude,  in  her  affectionate  remem- 
brance of  you — all  which  was  pleasant  to  hear.  At  Annan  I  found 
Goody's  letter,  review  of  'Sartor,'  gift  to  my  mother — all  as 
right  as  it  could  be.  Thanks  to  thee,  my  good  wife — though  very 
hot-tempered  one.  Oh,  my  dear  Jeanie,  I  have  more  regard  for 
thee  than,  perhaps,  thou  wilt  ever  rightly  know.  But  let  that 
pass.  The  Angel,  as  thou  sayest,  does  stir  the  waters  more  ways 
»  Agent  for  Craigenputtock. 


A  Night  at  Manchester.  127 

than  one.     Surely  our  better  days  are  still  coming.     All  here 
salute  you  right  heartily.     My  mother  is  proud  of  her  gifts. 

Ever  your  own, 

T.  Cablyle. 

On  liis  way  home,  in  October,  he  spent  a  day  or  two 
with  a  sister  who  had  married  a  Mr.  llanning,  in  Man- 
chester, and  met  with  an  adventnre  there.  He  had  been 
pnt  to  sleep  in  an  old  bed,  which  he  remembered  in  his 
father's  house. 

I  was  just  closing  my  senses  in  sweet  oblivion  (he  said),  when 
the  watchman,  with  a  voice  like  the  deepest  groan  of  the  Highland 
bagpipe,  or  what  an  ostrich  comcraik  might  utter,  groaned  out 
Groo-o-o-o  close  under  me,  and  set  all  in  a  gallop  again. 
Groo-o-o-o  ;  for  there  was  no  articulate  announcement  at  all  in  it, 
that  I  could  gather.  Groo-o-o-o,  repeated  again  and  again  at  vari- 
ous distances,  dying  out  and  tlien  growing  loud  again,  for  an  hour 
or  more.  I  grew  impatient,  bolted  out  of  bed,  flung  up  the 
window.  Groo-o-o-o.  There  he  was  advancing,  lantern  in  hand, 
a  few  yards  off  me.  '  Can't  you  give  up  that  noise  ?  '  I  hastily  ad- 
dressed him.  *  You  are  keeping  a  person  awake.  Wliat  good  is 
it  to  go  howling  and  groaning  all  night,  and  deprive  people  of 
their  sleep  ? '  He  ceased  from  that  time — at  least  I  heard  no  more 
of  him.  No  watchman,  I  think,  has  been  more  astonished  for 
some  time  back.  At  five  in  the  morning  all  was  as  still  as  sleej) 
and  darkness.  At  half-past  five  all  went  off  like  an  enormous  mill- 
race  or  ocean-tide.  The  Boom-m-m,  far  and  wide.  It  was  the 
mills  that  were  all  starting  then,  and  creishy  ^  drudges  by  the 
million  taking  jjost  there.  I  have  heard  few  sounds  more  impres- 
sive to  me  in  the  mood  I  was  in. 

At  home  he  found  all  well.  He  arrived  at  midnight, 
finding  Mrs.  Carlyle  improved  in  health,  and  sitting  up  for 
him ;  himself  quite  rested,  and  equal  to  work  again. 

I  have  been  eight  weeks  in  Scotland  (he  noted  in  his  Jouraal), 
looked  on  the  stones  of  Edinburgh  city,  wondered  whether  it  was 
solid  or  a  dream  ;  then  to  Annandale,  finally  drifted  back  hither — 
foolish  drift  log  on  the  sea  of  accident,  where  I  since  lie  high  and 
dry  not  a  whit  wiser.  How  many  tragedies,  epics,  Haynes  Baily 
»  Creishy^  '  greasy.* 


128  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

ballads,  and  '  bursts  of  Parliamentary  eloquence '  would  it  take  to 
utter  this  one  tour  by  an  atrabilian  lecturer  on  things  in  general  ? 

Evidences  were  waiting  for  him  that  he  was  becoming 
a  person  of  consequence  notwithstanding.  Presents  had 
been  sent  by  various  admirers.  There  was  good  news 
from  America.  The  English  edition  of  the  '  French 
Revolution '  was  ahnost  sold,  and  another  would  be  called 
for,  while  there  were  numberless  applications  from  review 
editors  for  articles  if  he  would  please  to  supply  them. 
Another  50Z.  had  come  from  Boston,  and  he  had  been 
meditating  an  indulgence  for  himself  out  of  all  this  pros- 
perity in  the  sliape  of  a  horse,  nothing  keeping  him  in 
health  so  much  as  ridino- ;  but  his  first  thouojht  was  of 
Scotsbrig  and  a  Christmas  gift  to  his  mother,  which  he 
sent  with  a  most  pretty  letter. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea  :  December  29,  1838. 
I  have  realised  my  American  draft  of  dollars  into  pounds  ster- 
ling. I  send  my  dear  Mother  five  off  the  fore  end  of  it.  The  kit- 
lin  ought  to  bring  the  auld  cat  a  mouse  in.  such  a  case  as  that — an 
American  mouse.  It  is  very  curious  that  cash  should  come  in 
that  way  to  good  Annandale  industry  across  3,000  miles  of  salt 
water  from  kind  hands  that  we  never  saw.  *  French  Eevolution ' 
is  going  off  briskly,  and  a  new  edition  required.  Both  from  the 
'  Miscellanies '  and  it  I  hope  to  make  a  little  cash.  I  understand 
the  method  of  bargaining  better  now,  and  the  books  do  sell — no 
thanks  to  booksellers,  or  even  in  spite  of  them.  It  does  not  seem 
at  all  likely  that  I  shall  ever  have  much  money  in  this  world ;  but 
I  am  not  now  so  terribly  hard  held  as  I  used  to  be.  Such  bitter 
thrift  may  perhaps  be  less  imperative  by-and-by. 

Out  of  the  suggestions  made  by  editors  for  articles  one 
especially  had  attracted  Carlyle.  Mill  had  asked  him  to 
WTite  on  Cromwell  for  the  '  London  and  "Wesminster.' 
There  is  nothing  in  his  journals  or  letters  to  shows  that 
Cromwell  had  been  hitherto  an  interesting  figure  to  him. 
An  allusion  in  one  of  his  Craigenputtock  papers  shows  that 


Oliver  Cromwell.  129 

he  then  shared  tlie  popular  prevailing  opinions  on  tlio 
subject.  He  agreed,  however,  to  Mill's  proposal,  and  was 
preparing  to  begin  with  it  when  the  negotiation  was 
broken  off  in  a  manner  specially  affronting.  Mill  had 
gone  abroad,  leaving  Mr.  Kobertson  to  manage  the  Re- 
view. Robertson,  whom  Carlyle  had  hitherto  liked,  wrote 
to  him  coolly  to  say  that  he  need  not  go  on,  for  '  he  meant 
to  do  Cromwell  himself.'  Carlyle  was  very  angr3\  It 
was  this  incident  which  determined  him  to  throw  himself 
seriously  into  the  history  of  the  Commonwealth,  and. to 
expose  himself  no  more  to  cavalier  treatment  from  *  able 
editors.'  His  connection  with  the  '  London  and  West- 
minster '  at  once  ended. 

Have  nothing  to  do  with  fools  (he  said).  They  are  the  fatal 
species.  Nay,  Robei-tson,  withal,  is  fifteen  years  younger  than  I. 
To  be  '  edited '  by  him  and  by  Mill  and  the  Benthaniic  formula  ! 
Oh  heavens  !  It  is  worse  than  Algiers  and  Negro  Guiana.  Noth- 
ing short  of  death  should  drive  a  white  man  to  it. 

From  this  moment  he  began  to  think  seriously  of  a  life 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  as  his  next  important  undertaking, 
whatever  he  might  have  to  do  meanwhile  in  the  way  of 
lectures  or  shorter  papers. 

To  John  Carlyle, 

Chelsea  :  January  13,  1839. 
I  dare  say  I  mentioned  that  I  was  not  intending  to  work  any  fur- 
ther at  present  in  the  *  Westminster  Review,'  but  to  write  by-and- 
by  something  more  to  my  mind.  I  have  my  face  turned  partly 
towards  Oliver  Cromwell  and  the  Covenant  time  in  England  and 
Scotland,  and  am  reading  books  and  meaning  to  read  more  for  the 
matter,  for  it  is  large  and  full  of  meaning.  But  what  I  shall  make 
of  it,  or  whether  I  shall  make  anything  at  all,  it  would  be  prema- 
ture to  say  as  yet.  The  only  thing  clear  is  that  I  have  again  some 
notion  of  writing,  which  I  had  not  at  all  last  year  or  the  year  be- 
fore—a sign  doubtless  that  I  am  getting  into  heart  again,  and  not 
so  utterly  bewildered  and  beaten  down  as  I  was  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  •  Revolution  '  struggle.  Anything  that  I  write  now  would 
t^ll  better  than  former  things,  and  I  think  indeed  would  be  pretty 
Vol.  IIX— 9 


130  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

sure  to  bring  me  in  a  trifle  of  money  in  the  long  run.  .  .  . 
Yon  may  picture  us  sitting  snug  here  most  evenings  in  *  stuffed 
chairs,'  in  this  warm  little  parlour,  reading,  or  reading  and  sewing, 
or  talking  with  some  rational  visitor  that  has  perhaps  dropped  in. 
Some  people  say  I  ought  to  get  a  horse  with  my  American  money 
before  lecture-time,  and  ride,  that  I  might  be  in  a  better  bodily 
condition  for  that  enterprise.  I  should  like  it  right  well  if  it  were 
not  so  dear.     We  shall  see. 

Want  of  books  was  his  great  difficulty,  with  such  a  sub- 
ject on  hand  as  the  Commonwealth.  His  Cambridge 
friends  had  come  to  liis  help  by  giving  him  the  use  of  the 
books  in  the  University  Library,  and  sending  them  up  for 
liim  to  read.  Yery  kind  on  their  part,  as  he  felt,  'con- 
sidering what  a  sulky  fellow  he  was.'  But  he  needed  re- 
sources of  which  he  could  avail  himself  more  freely.  The 
British  Museum  was,  of  course,  open  to  him  ;  but  he  re- 
quired to  have  his  authorities  at  hand,  where  his  own 
writing-tackle  lay  round  him,  where  he  could  refer  to  them 
at  any  moment,  and  for  this  purpose  the  circulating  libra- 
I'ies  were  useless.  New  novels,  travels,  biographies,  the 
annual  growth  of  literature  which  today  was  and  to- 
morrow was  cast  into  the  oven — these  he  could  get ;  but 
the  records  of  genuine  knowledge,  where  the  pertnanent 
thoughts  and  doings  of  mankind  lay  embalmed,  were  to 
be  found  for  the  most  part  only  on  the  shelves  of  great 
institutions,  could  be  read  only  there,  and  could  not  be 
taken  out.  Long  before,  when  at  Craigenputtock,  it  had 
occurred  to  him  that  a  county  town  like  Dumfries,  which 
maintained  a  gaol,  might  equally  maintain  a  public  library. 
He  was  once  at  Oxford  in  the  library  of  All  Souls'  College, 
one  of  the  best  in  England,  and  one  (in  my  day  at  least) 
so  little  used  that,  if  a  book  was  missed  from  its  place,  the 
whole  college  was  in  consternation.*  Carlyle,  looking 
wistfully  at  the   ranged  folios,   exclaimed  :    '  Ah,  books, 

1  The  Fellows  might  take  books  to  their  rooms,  but  so  seldom  did  take  them 
there  that  any  other  explanation  seemed  more  likely. 


Tfie  *^  London  JAhfary!*  131 

books !  you  will  have  a  poor  account  to  give  of  yourselves 
at  the  day  of  judgment.  Here  have  you  been  kept  warm 
and  dry,  with  good  coats  on  your  backs,  and  a  good  roof 
over  your  heads ;  and  whom  have  ye  made  any  better  or 
any  wiser  than  he  was  before  ? '  Cambridge,  more  liberal 
•than  Oxford,  did  lend  out  volumes  with  fit  securities  for 
their  safety,  and  from  this  source  Carlyle  obtained  his 
Clarendon  and  Eush worth ;  but  he  determined  to  try 
whether  a  public  lending  library  of  authentic  worth  could 
not  be  instituted  in  London.  He  has  been  talked  of 
vaguely  as  'unpractical.'  Ko  one  living  had  a  more  prac- 
tical business  talent  when  he  had  an  object  in  view  for 
which  such  a  faculty  was  required.  He  set  on  foot  an 
agitation.'  The  end  was  recognised  as  good.  Influential 
men  took  up  the  question,  and  it  was  carried  through,  and 
the  result  was  the  infinitely  valuable  institution  known  as 
the  *  London  Library '  in  St.  James's  Square.  Let  the 
tens  of  thousands  who,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  are  '  made  better 
and  wiser'  by  the  books  collected  there  remember  that 
they  owe  the  privilege  entirely  to  Carlyle.  The  germ  of 
it  lay  in  that  original  reflection  of  his  on  the  presence  of  a 
gaol  and  the  absence  of  a  lii)rary  in  Dumfries.  His  sur- 
cessful  effort  to  realise  it  in  London  began  in  this  winter 
of  1839. 

Meanwhile  a  third  remittance  from  America  on  the 
*  Revolution '  brought  the  whole  sum  which  he  had  re- 
ceived fi'om  his  Boston  friends  to  150Z.  He  felt  it  deeply, 
for  as  yet  '  not  a  penny  had  been  realised  in  England.'  In 
acknowledging  the  receipt,  he  said  that  he  had  never  re- 
ceived money  of  which  he  was  more  proud.  *  It  had  been 
sent  almost  by  miracle.'  He  showed  the  draft  to  Fraser, 
his  English  publisher,  and  told  him  he  ought  to  blush. 

»  Among  the  pernons  whom  he  tried  to  interest  waji  Babbage,  whom  ho  did 
not  take  to.  '  Did  you  ever  Bee  him  ? '  he  writes  to  his  brother  ;  *  a  mixturo 
of  craven  terror  and  venomooB-looking  vehemence ;  with  no  chin  too— cross 
between  a  frog  and  a  viper,  as  somebody  called  him. ' 


132  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

The  poor  creature  did  blush,  but  what  could  that  serve  ?  He 
has  done  with  his  edition  too,  all  but  seventy-live  copies.  Above 
a  thousand  i^ounds  has  been  gathered  from  England  from  that 
book,  but  none  seems  to  belong  to  the  writer ;  it  all  belongs  to 
oLher  people— the  sharks.  They  charge  above  40  per  cent.,  I  find, 
for  the  mere  function  of  selling  a  book,  the  mere  fash  of  handing 
it  over  the  counter. 

A  strange  reflection,  to  which,  however,  the  publishers 
have  an  answer ;  for,  if  some  books  sell,  others  fail,  and 
the  successful  must  pay  for  the  unsuccessful.  Without 
publishers  and  without  booksellers,  books  could  not  be 
brought  out  at  all ;  and  they,  too,  must  '  earn  their  living.' 

Few  men  cared  less  about  such  things  than  Carlyle  did 
as  long  as  penury  was  kept  from  his  door.  Apart  from 
his  business  with  the  London  Library,  he  was  wholly  oc- 
cupied with  the  records  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  here 
are  the  first  impressions  which  he  formed. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea:  February  15,  1839. 
I  have  read  a  good  many  volumes  about  Cromwell  and  his  times  ; 
I  have  a  good  many  more  to  read.  Whether  a  book  will  come  of 
it  or  not — still  more,  when  such  will  come — are  questions  as  yet. 
The  pabulum  this  subject  yields  me  is  not  very  gi-eat.  I  find  it 
far  inferior  in  interest  to  my  French  subject.  But,  on  the  whole, 
I  want  to  get  acquainted  with  England — a  great  secret  to  me  al- 
ways hitherto — and  I  may  as  well  begin  here  as  elsewhere.  There 
are  but  two  very  remarkable  men  in  the  period  visible  as  yet — 
Cromwell  and  Montrose.  The  rest  verge  towards  wearisomeness. 
Indeed,  the  whole  subject  is  Dutch-built :  heavy-bottomed,  with 
an  internal  fire  and  significance  indeed,  but  extremely  wrapped  in 
buckram  and  lead.  We  shall  see.  In  the  meanwhile,  I  have  got 
a  large  portmanteau  of  books  about  the  thing  from  Cambridge. 
Here  they  actually  stand,  sent  me  by  persons  whom  I  never  saw  ; 
a  most  handsome  and  encouraging  phenomenon.  The  visible 
agent  is  one  Douglas  Heath,  a  promising  young  barrister,  who 
sometimes  comes  here  ;  is  a  Cambridge  man,  and  a  zealous  reader 

of  zaine 150/.  sent  by  Emerson  for  the   '  French 

Kevolution  ! '    Was  any  braver  thin  g  ever  heard  of?     150/.  from 


Breakfast  with  Mil/ne8.  133 

beyond  the  salt  sea,  wliile  not  a  sixpence  could  be  realised  here  in 
one's  own  country  by  the  thing  I  I  declare  my  American  friends 
are  ri^ht  fellows,  and  have  done  their  aflkirs  with  effect.  It  seems 
I  am  going  to  make  some  cash  after  all  by  these  books  of  mine. 
Tout  va  bien  ;  neither  need  we  now  add,  le  pain  manque. 

Seldom  had  Carlyle  seemed  in  better  spirits  than  now. 
For  once  his  outer  world  was  going  well  with  him.  lie 
had  occasional  fits  of  dyspepsia,  which,  indeed,  seemed  to 
afflict  him  most  when  he  had  least  that  was  real  to  com- 
plain of.  He  was  disappointed  about  Montrose  for  one 
thing.  He  had  intended,  naturally  enough  as  a  Scotch- 
man, to  make  a  principal  figure  of  Montrose,  and  had 
found  that  he  could  not,  that  it  was  impossible  to  discover 
what  Montrose  was  really  like.  But  the  dyspepsia  was 
the  main  evil — dyspepsia  and  London  society,  which  in- 
terested him  more  than  he  would  allow,  and  was  the  cause 
of  the  disorder.  He  was  plagued,  too,  with  duties  as  a 
citizen. 

Journal. 

Feh'nary  22,  1839. — The  day  is  rainy  and  bad.  Jane  gone  out, 
perhaps  not  veiy  prudently.  At  seven  o'clock  I  am  to  dine  with 
the  IMarshalls.  Me  miser  am  !  Why  do  I  ever  agree  to  go  and  dine  ? 
Were  it  revealed  to  me  as  tuft-hunting,  I  would  instantly  give  it 
up  for  ever.  But  it  seems  to  be  the  only  chance  of  society  one 
has.  In  this  kind  I  have  too  much  already.  Lectures  coming 
too,  and  on  Monday  I  am  to  dine  with  a  certain  Baring  ;  and  last 
week,  for  two  days,  I  was  a  special  juryman.  I  am  a  poor  creature. 
I  am  no  longer  so  poor,  but  I  do  not  feel  any  happiness.  I  must 
start  up  and  try  to  help  myself.     Gott  hilf  mir  ! 

Monckton  Milnes  had  made  his  acquaintance,  and  in- 
vited him  to  breakfast.  He  used  to  say  that,  if  Christ  was 
again  on  earth,  Milnes  would  ask  Him  to  breakfast,  and 
the  Clubs  would  all  be  talking  of  the  '  good  things '  that 
Christ  had  said.  But  Milnes,  then  as  always,  had  open 
eyes  for  genius,  and  reverence  for  it  truer  and  deeper  thaa 
most  of  his  conteniporaricB. 


134  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

A  month  ago  (Carlyle  writes  to  his  brother)  Milnes  invited  me 
to  breakfast  to  meet  Bunsen.  Pusey  ^  was  there,  a  solid,  judicious 
Englishman,  very  kind  to  me.  Hallam  was  there,  a  broad,  old, 
positive  man,  with  laughing  eyes.  X.  was  there,  a  most  jerking, 
distorted,  violent,  vapid,  brown-gipsy  piece  of  self-conceit  and 
green-roomism.  Others  there  were  ;  and  the  great  hero  Bunsen, 
with  red  face  large  as  the  shield  of  Fingal — not  a  bad  fellow,  nor 
without  talent ;  full  of  speech.  Protestantism — Prussian  Toryism — 
who  zealously  inquired  my  address. 

More  important  by  far  than  any  of  these  to  Carlyle  was 
tlie  '  certain  Baring '  with  w^liom  he  was  to  .dine  at  Bath 
Ilonse.  It  is  the  first  notice  of  his  introduction  to  the 
brilliant  circle  in  which  he  was  afterward  to  be  so  inti- 
mate. Mr.  Baring,  later  known  as  Lord  Ashburton,  be- 
came tlie  closest  friend  that  he  had.  Lady  Harriet 
became  his  Gloriana,  or  Queen  of  Fairy  Land,  and  exer- 
cised a  strange  influence  over  him  for  good  and  evil.  But 
this  lay  undreamed  of  in  the  future,  when  he  w^rote  his 
account  of  the  dinner.  Bunsen  was  again  one  of  the 
guest;^. 

It  was  one  of  the  most  elevated  affairs  I  had  ever  seen ;  lords, 
ladies,  and  other  like  high  personages,  several  of  them  auditors  of 
mine  in  the  last  lecturing  season.  The  lady  of  the  house,  one 
lady  Han-iet  Baring,  I  had  to  sit  and  talk  with  specially  for  a  long, 
long  while — one  of  the  cleverest  creatures  I  have  met  with,  full  of 
mirth  and  spirit ;  not  very  beautiful  to  look  upon. 

And  again,  in  another  letter : — 

Lord  Mahon  was  there,  a  small,  fashionable  Tory,  with  a  beau- 
tiful wife.  The  dinner  was  after  eight,  and  ruined  me  for  a  week. 
Bunsen  did  not  shine  there.  The  lady  hardly  hid  from  him  tha: 
she  feared  he  was  a  lore.  She  kept  me  talking  an  hour  or  more 
upstairs  ;  a  clever  devil,  as  Taylor  calls  her,  helle  laide,  full  of  wit, 
and  the  most  like  a  dame  of  quality  of  all  that  I  have  yet  seen. 

Even  in  Carlyle's  own  home  dissipation  pursued  him, 
Mrs.  Welsh  was  staying  there,  and  she  and  her  daughter 
took  it  into  their  heads  to  have  an  evening  party  of  the 

>  Not  Di.  Pusey,  but  his  elder  brother. 


Lmxdon  Vanities,  135 

established  sort,  the  first  and  last  time,  I  believe,  that  such 
a  thing  was  attempted  in  that  house. 

-The  other  week  (he  says  on  the  8th  of  March)  Jane  andacionslj 
got  up  a  thing  called  a  soiree  one  evening — that  is  to  say,  a  party 
of  persons  who  have  little  to  do  except  wander  through  a  room  or 
rooms,  and  hustle  and  simmer  about,  all  talking  to  one  another  as 
they  best  can.  It  seemed  to  me  a  most  questionable  thing  for  the 
Leddy  this.  However,  she  was  drawn  into  it  insensibly,  and  could 
not  get  retreated  ;  so  it  took  effect — between  twenty  and  thirty  en- 
tirely brilliant  bits  of  personages — and  really,  it  all  went  off  in  a 
most  successful  manner.  At  midnight  I  smoked  a  peaceable  pipe, 
praying  it  might  be  long  before  we  saw  the  like  again. 

Serious  work  was  somewhat  disturbed  by  these  splen- 
dours ;  but,  in  fact,  he  was  taking  life  easy,  and  was  not 
disinclined  to  enjoy  himself. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  March  11,  1839. 
I  am  reading  a  great  many  books,  in  a  languid  way,  about  Crom- 
well and  his  time,  but  any  work  on  this  matter  seems  yet  at  a  great 
distance  from  me.  The  ti-uth  is,  I  have  arrived  at  the  turning  of  a 
new  leaf,  and  right  thankful  am  I  that  Heaven  enables  me  to  pause 
a  little,  and  I  willingly  follow  the  monition  or  permission  of 
Heaven.  From  my  boyhood  upwards  I  have  been  like  a  creature 
breathlessly  *  climbing  a  soaj^ed  pole  ; '  niin  and  the  bottomless 
abyss  beneath  me,  and  the  pole  quite  slippery  soaped.  But  now 
I  have  got  to  a  kind  of  notch  on  the  same,  and  do  purpose,  by 
Heaven's  blessing,  to  take  my  breath  a  moment  there  before  ad- 
venturing furiher.  If  I  live,  I  shall  probably  have  farther  to  go  ; 
if  not,  not — we  can  do  either  way.  In  biliary  days  (I  am  apt  to  be 
biliary),  the  devil  reproaches  me  dreadfully,  but  I  answer,  '  True, 
boy  ;  no  sonier  scoundrel  in  the  world  than  lazy  1 1  But  what 
help  ?  I  love  no  subject  so  as  to  give  my  life  for  it  at  present.  I 
will  not  write  on  any  subject,  seest  thou  ?  but  prefer  to  ripen  or 
rot  for  a  while.' 

The  lectures  had  to  be  provided  for,  but  the  subject 
chosen,  the  Revolutions  of  Modern  Europe,  was  one  on 
which  Carlyle  could  speak  without  special  preparation.  An 
English  edition  of  the  '  Miscelknies '  was  coming  out  at 


136  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

last,  and  money  was  to  be  paid  for  it.  He  was  thus  able 
to  lie  upon  his  oars  till  Cromwell  or  some  other  topic  took 
active  possession ;  and,  meanwhile,  he  had  to  receive  the 
homage  of  the  world,  which  began  to  be  offered  from  un- 
expected quarters.  An  account  of  Count  d'Orsay's  visit  to 
Cheyne  Row  is  amusingly  told  by  Mrs.  Carlyle  in  the 
Letters  and  Memorials.  Here  is  her  husband's  version 
of  the  same  sumptuous  phenomenon.  After  speaking  of 
the  favourable  arrangements  for  the  publication  of  the 
'  Miscellanies,'  he  says  : — 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  April  16,  1839. 
My  heart  silently  thanks  Heaven  that  I  was  not  tried  beyond 
what  I  could  bear.  It  is  quite  a  new  sensation,  and  one  of  the 
most  blessed,  that  you  will  actually  be  allowed  to  live  not  a  beg- 
gar. As  to  the  praise,  &c.,  I  think  it  will  not  hurt  me  much  ;  I 
can  see  too  well  the  meaning  of  what  that  is.  I  have  too  faithful 
a  dyspepsia  working  continually  in  monition  of  me,  were  there 
nothing  else.  Nevertheless,  I  must  tell  you  of  the  strangest  com- 
pliment of  all,  which  occurred  since  I  wrote  last — the  advent  of 
Count  d'Orsay.  About  a  fortnight  ago,  this  Phoebus  Apollo  of 
dandyism,  escorted  by  poor  little  Chorley,  came  whirling  hither  in 
a  chariot  that  struck  all  Chelsea  into  mute  amazement  with  splen- 
dour. Chorley 's  under  jaw  went  like  the  hopper  or  under  riddle 
of  a  pair  of  fanners,  such  was  his  terror  on  bringing  such  a  splen- 
dour into  actual  contact  with  such  a  grimness.  Nevertheless,  we 
did  amazingly  well,  the  Count  and  I.  He  is  a  tall  fellow  of  six  feet 
three,  built  like  a  tower,  with  floods  of  dark-auburn  hair,  with  a 
beauty,  with  an  adornment  unsurpassable  on  this  planet ;  withal 
a  rather  substantial  fellow  at  bottom,  by  no  means  without  insight, 
without  fun,  and  a  sort  of  rough  sarcasm  rather  striking  out  of 
such  a  porcelain  figure.  He  said,  looking  at  Shelley's  bust,  in  his 
French  accent,  *  Ah,  it  is  one  of  those  faces  who  weesh  to  swallow 
their  chin.'  He  admired  the  fine  epic,  &c.,  &c.;  hoped  I  would 
call  soon,  and  see  Lady  Blessington  withal.  Finally  he  went  his 
way,  and  Chorley  with  reassumed  jaw.  Jane  laughed  for  two  days 
at  the  contrast  of  my  plaid  dressing-gown,  bilious,  iron  counte- 
nance, and  this  Paphian  apparition.  I  did  not  call  till  the  other 
day,  and  left  my  card  merely.     I  do  not  see  well  what  good  I  can 


Third  Course  of  Lectu/res,  137 

get  hy  meeting  him  much,  or  Lady  B.  and  demirepdom,  though  I 
should  not  object  to  see  it  once,  and  then  oftener  if  agi-eeable. 

May  brought  tlie  lectures  at  the  old  rooms  in  Edward 
Street.  They  did  not  please  Carlyle,  and,  perhaps,  were 
not  really  among  his  fine  utterances.  In  the  *  French 
Revolution '  he  had  given  his  best  thoughts  on  the  subject 
in  his  best  manner.  He  could  now  only  repeat  himself, 
more  or  less  rhetorically,  with  a  varying  text.  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle herself  did  not  think  that  her  husband  "was  doing 
justice  to  himself.  He  was  unwell  for  one  thing.  But 
the  success  was  distinct  as  ev^er;  the  audience  bursting 
into  ejaculations  of  surprise  and  pleasure.  The  '  Splen- 
dids ! ',  '  Devilish  fines  ! ',  ^  Most  trues ! ',  cfec,  all  indicat- 
ing that  on  their  side  there  was  no  disappointment.  His 
own  account  of  the  matter  indicates  far  less  satisfaction. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  May  36,  1839. 
The  lectures  are  over  with  tolerable  eclat,  with  a  clear  gain  of 
very  nearly  200/.,  which  latter  is  the  only  altogether  comfortable 
part  of  the  business.  My  audience  was  visibly  more  numerous 
than  ever,  and  of  more  distinguished  people.  My  sorrow  in  de- 
livery was  less  ;  my  remorse  after  delivery  was  much  greater.  I 
gave  one  veiy  bad  lecture  (as  I  thought)  ;  the  last  but  one.  It 
was  on  the  French  Revolution.  I  was  dispirited — in  miserable 
health.  My  audience,  mainly  Toiy,  could  not  be  expected  to 
sympathise  with  me.  In  short,  I  felt,  after  it  was  over,  hke  a 
man  that  had  been  robbing  henroosts.  In  which  circumstances, 
I,  the  day  before  my  finale,  hired  a  swift  horse,  galloj^ed  out  to 
Han*ow  like  a  Faust's  flight  through  an  ocean  of  green,  went  in  a 
kind  of  rage  to  the  room  the  next  day,  and  made  on  Sanscullottism 
itself  very  considerably  the  nearest  approach  to  a  good  lecture 
they  ever  got  out  of  me,  carried  the  whole  business  glowing  after 
me,  and  ended  half  an  hour  beyond  niy  time  with  universal  de- 
cisive applause  suflBcient  for  the  situation. 

The  *  remorse'  was  genuine,  for  Carlyle  in  his  heart 
disapproved  of  these  displays  and  detested  them.  Yet 
he,  too,  had  become  aware  of  the  strange  sensation  of 


138  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

seeing  a  crowd  of  people  hanging  upon  his  words,  and 
Yielding  themselves  like  an  instrument  for  him  to  play 
upon.  There  is  an  iri-esistible  feeling  of  proud  delight  in 
such  situations.  If  not  intoxicated,  he  was  excited  ;  and 
Emerson  writing  at  the  same  moment  to  press  him  to 
show  himself  in  Boston,  he  did  think  for  a  second  or 
two  of  going  over  for  the  autumn  '  to  learn  the  art  of 
extempore  speaking/  Had  he  gone  it  might  have  been 
the  ruin  of  him,  for  he  had  all  the  qualities  which  with 
practice  would  have  made  him  a  splendid  orator.  But  he 
was  wise  in  time,  and  set  himself  to  a  worthier  enterprise 
— not  yet  Cromwell,  but  something  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  Cromwell — and  insisted  on  being  dealt  with  before 
he  could  settle  upon  history.  All  his  life  he  had  been 
meditating  on  the  problem  of  the  working-man's  existence 
in  this  country  at  the  present  epoch  ;  how  wealth  was 
growing,  but  the  human  toilers  grew  none  the  better, 
mentally  or  bodily — not  better,  only  more  numerous,  and 
liable,  on  any  check  to  trade,  to  sink  into  squalor  and 
famine.  He  had  seen  the  Glasgow  riots  in  1819.  He 
had  heard  his  father  talk  of  the  poor  masons,  dining 
silently  upon  w^ater  and  w^ater-cresses.  His  letters  are 
full  of  reflections  on  such  things,  sad  or  indignant,  as  the 
humour  might  be.  He  was  himself  a  working-man's  son. 
He  had  been  bred  in  a  peasant  home,  and  all  his  sympa- 
thies w^ere  with  his  own  class.  He  was  not  a  revolutionist; 
he  knew  well  that  violence  would  be  no  remedy;  that 
there  lay  only  madness  and  deeper  misery.  But  the  fact 
remained,  portending  frightful  issues.  The  Reform  Bill 
was  to  have  mended  matters,  but  the  Beform  Bill  had 
gone  by  and  the  poor  were  none  the  happier.  The  power 
of  the  State  had  been  shifted  from  the  aristocracy  to  the 
millowners,  and  merchants,  and  shopkeepers.  That  was 
all.  The  handicraftsman  remained  where  he  was,  or  was 
sinking,  rather,  into  an  unowned  Arab,  to  whom   '  free- 


'ChaHlsm:  139 

dom '  meant  freedom  to  work  if  the  employer  had  work 
to  ofFer  him  conveniently  to  himself,  or  else  freedom  to 
starve.  The  fruit  of  such  a  state  of  society  as  tiiis  was 
the  Sansculottism  on  which  he  had  been  lecturing,  and  he 
felt  that  he  must  put  his  thoughts  upon  it  in  a  permanent 
form.  He  had  no  faith  in  political  remedies,  in  extended 
suffrages,  recognition  of  *  the  rights  of  man,'  &c. — abso- 
lutely none.  That  was  the  road  on  which  the  French  had 
gone ;  and,  if  tried  in  England,  it  would  end  as  it  ended 
with  them — in  anarchy,  and  hunger,  and  fury.  The  root 
of  the  mischief  was  the  forgetf ulness  on  the  part  of  the 
upper  classes,  increasing  now  to  flat  denial,  that  they 
owed  any  duty  to  those  under  them  beyond  the  payment 
of  contract  wages  at  the  market  price.  The  Liberal 
theoiy,  as  formulated  in  Political  Economy,  was  that 
everyone  should  attend  exclusively  to  his  own  interests, 
and  that  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds  would  be  the 
certain  result.  His  own  conviction  was  that  the  result 
would  be  the  worst  of  all  possible  worlds,  a  world  in 
which  human  life,  such  a  life  as  human  beings  ought  to 
live,  would  become  impossible.  People  talked  of  Prog- 
ress. To  him  there  was  no  progress  except  'moral  prog- 
ress,' a  clearer  recognition  of  the  duties  which  stood  face 
to  face  with  every  man  at  each  moment  of  his  life,  and 
the  neglect  of  which  would  be  his  destruction.  He  was 
appalled  at  the  contrast  between  the  principles  on  which 
men  practically  acted  and  those  which  on  Sundays  they 
professed  to  believe  ;  at  the  ever-increasing  luxury  in  rich 
men's  palaces,  and  the  wretchedness,  without  hope  of 
escape,  of  the  millions  without  whom  that  luxury  could 
not  have  been.  Such  a  state  of  things,  he  thought,  might 
continue  for  a  time  among  a  people  naturally  well  dis- 
posed and  accustomed  to  submission  ;  but  it  could  not  last 
for  ever.  The  Maker  of  the  world  would  not  allow  it. 
The  angry  slaves  of  toil  would  rise  and  burn  the 


140  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

as  the  French  peasantry  had  burnt  the  chateaux.  The 
only  remedy  was  the  old  one — to  touch  the  conscience  or 
the  fears  of  those  whom  he  regarded  as  responsible.  He 
felt  that  he  must  write  something  about  all  that,  though  it 
was  not  easy  to  see  how  or  where.  Such  a  message  as  he 
had  to  give  would  be  welcome  neither  to  Liberals  nor 
Conservatives.  The  Political  Economists  believed  that 
since  the  Reform  Bill  all  was  going  as  it  should  do,  and 
required  only  to  be  let  alone  ;  the  more  the  rich  enjoyed 
themselves,  the  more  employment  there  would  be,  and 
high  and  low  would  be  l)enefited  alike.  The  I^oble  Lords 
and  gentry  were  happy  in  their  hounds  and  their  game- 
preserves,  and  had  lost  the  sense  that  rank  and  wealth 
meant  anything  save  privilege  for  idle  amusement.  Not 
to  either  of  these,  nor  to  their  organs  in  the  press,  could 
Carlyle  be  welcome.  He  was  called  a  Radical,  and  Radi- 
cal he  was,  if  to  require  a  change  in  the  souls,  and  hearts, 
and  habits  of  life  of  men  was  to  be  a  Radical.  But  per- 
haps no  one  in  England  more  entirely  disbelieved  every 
single  article  of  the  orthodox  Radical  creed.  He  had  more 
in  common  with  the  Tories  than  with  their  rivals,  and  was 
prepared,  if  such  a  strange  ally  pleased  them,  to  let  it  so 
appear.  'Guess  what  immediate  project  I  am  on,'  he 
wrote  to  his  brother,  when  the  lectures  were  over  :  '  that 
of  writing  an  article  on  the  working-classes  for  the  "  Quar- 
terly." It  is  verily  so.  I  offered  to  do  the  thing  for  Mill 
about  a  year  ago.  He  durst  not.  I  felt  a  kind  of  call 
and  monition  of  duty  to  do  it,  wrote  to  Lockhart  accord- 
ingly, was  altogether  invitingly  answered,  had  a  long  in- 
terview with  the  man  yesterday,  found  him  a  person  of 
sense,  good-breeding,  even  kindness,  and  great  consen- 
taneity of  opinion  with  myself  on  the  matter.  Am  to  get 
books  from  him  to-morrow,  and  so  shall  forthwith  set  abont 
telling  the  Conservatives  a  thing  or  two  about  the  claims, 
condition,  rights,  and  mights  of  the  working  order  of  men. 


'  Chai'tmn:  141 

Jane  is  very  glad,  partly  from  a  kind  of  spite  at  the  Blod- 
ainnigkelt  of  Mill  and  his  wooden  set.  The  liadicals,  as 
they  stand  now,  are  dead  and  gone,  I  apprehend,  owing 
to  their  lieathen  stupidity  on  this  very  matter.  It  is  not 
to  he  out  till  autumn,  that  being  the  time  for  things  re- 
quiring thought,  as  Lockhart  says.  I  shall  have  much  to 
read  and  inquire,  but  I  shall  have  the  thing  off  my  hands, 
and  have  my  heart  clear  about  it.' 

What  came  of  this  project  will  be  seen.  One  result  of 
it,  however,  was  a  singular  relation  which  grew  up  between 
Carlyle  and  Lockhart.  They  lived  in  different  circles; 
they  did  not  meet  often,  or  correspond  often  ;  but  Carlyle 
ever  after  spoke  of  Lockhart  as  he  seldom  spoke  of  any 
man  ;  and  such  letters  of  Lockhart's  to  Carlyle  as  survive 
show  a  trusting  confidence  extremely  remarkable  in  a  man 
who  was  so  chary  of  his  esteem. 

In  general  society  Carlyle  was  mixing  more  and  more, 
important  persons  seeking  his  acquaintance.  He  met 
Webster,  the  famous  American,  at  breakfast  one  morning, 
and  has  left  a  portrait  of  this  noticeable  politician.  '  I 
will  warrant  him,'  he  says, '  one  of  the  stiffest  logic  buffers 
and  parliamentary  athletes  anywhere  to  be  met  with  in 
our  world  at  present — a  grim,  tall,  broad -bottomed,  yellow- 
skinned  man,  with  brows  like  precipitous  cliffs,  and  huge, 
black,  dull,  wearied,  yet  unweariable-looking  eyes,  under 
them ;  amoi-phous  projecting  nose,  and  the  angriest  shut 
mouth  I  have  anywhere  seen.  A  droop  on  the  sides  of 
the  upper  lip  is  quite  mastiff-like — magnificent  to  look 
upon  ;  it  is  so  quiet  withal.  I  guess  I  should  like  ill  to 
be  that  man's  nigger.  However,  he  is  a  I'ight  clever  man 
in  his  way,  and  has  a  husky  sort  of  fun  in  him  too  ;  drawls 
in  a  handfast  didactic  manner  about  "our  republic  insti- 
tutions," &c.,  and  so  plays  his  part.'  Another  memorable 
notability  Carlyle  came  across  at  this  time,  who  struck 
him  much,  and  the  attraction  was  nmtual — Connop  Thirl- 


142  Varlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

wall,  afterwards  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  then  under  a  cloud 
in  the  ecclesiastic  world,  as  '  suspect '  of  heresy.  Of  this 
great  man  more  will  be  heard  hereafter.  Their  first  meet- 
ing was  at  James  Spedding's  rooms  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields ;  '  very  pleasant,  free  and  easy,  with  windows  flung 
up,  and  tobacco  ad  libitum,'^  He  found  the  future  bishop 
'  a  most  sarcastic,  sceptical,  but  strong-hearted,  strong- 
headed  man,  whom  he  had  a  real  liking  for.'  The  ortho- 
dox side  of  the  conversation  was  maintained,  it  seems, 
by  Milnes,  'who  gave  the  party  dilettante  Catholicism, 
and  endured  Thirlwall's  tobacco.' 

One  more  pleasant  incident  befell  Carlyle  before  the 
dog-days  and  the  annual  migration.  He  was  known  to 
wish  for  a  horse,  and  yet  to  hesitate  whether  such  an  in- 
dulgence was  permissible  to  a  person  financially  situated 
as  he  was.  Mr.  Marshall,  of  Leeds,  whose  name  has  been 
already  mentioned,  heard  of  it ;  and  Mr.  Marshall's  son 
appeared  one  day  in  Cheyne  Kow,  with  a  message  that  his 
father  had  a  mare  for  which  he  had  no  use,  and  would  be 
pleased  if  Carlyle  would  accept  her.  The  offer  was  made 
with  the  utmost  delicacy.  If  he  was  leaving  town,  and 
did  not  immediately  need  such  an  article,  they  would  keep 
her  at  grass  till  he  returned.  It  was  represented,  in  fact, 
as  a  convenience  to  them,  as  well  as  a  possible  pleasure  to 
him.  The  gift  was  nothing  in  itself,  for  Mr.  Marshall 
was  a  man  of  vast  wealth  ;  but  it  was  a  handsome  sign  of 
consideration  and  good-feeling,  and  was  gratefully  recog- 
nised as  such.  The  mare  became  Carlyle's.  She  was 
called  '  Citoyenne,'  after  the  '  French  Eevolution.'  The 
expense  would  be  something,  but  would  be  repaid  by  in- 
crease of  health.  Mrs.  Carlyle  said,  '  It  is  like  buying  a 
laying  hen,  and  giving  it  to  some  deserving  person.  Ac- 
cept it,  dear ! ' 

A  still  nearer  friend  had  also  been  taking  thought  for 
his  comfort.     He  was  going  to  Scotland,  and  this  year  his 


Holiday  m  Scotlcmd.  143 

wife  was  going  with  him.  The  faithful,  though tfnl  Jolm 
had  sent  30Z.  privately  to  his  brother  Alick  at  Eccle- 
fechan,  to  provide  a  horse  and  gig,  that  Carlyle  and  she 
might  drive  about  together  as  with  the  old  cLatch  at 
Craigenputtock — a  beautiful  action  on  the  part  of  John. 
They  went  north  in  the  middle  of  July,  going  fii-st  to 
Kithsdale  to  stay  with  Mrs.  Welsh  at  Templand.  Mrs. 
Welsh,  too,  had  been  considering  what  she  could  do  to 
gratify  her  son-in-law,  and  had  invited  his  mother  over 
from  Scotsbrig  to  meet  him.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  not  well 
at  Templand,  and  could  not  mnch  enjoy  herself ;  but 
Carlyle  was  like  a  boy  out  of  school.  He  and  his  old 
mother  drove  about  in  John's  gig  together,  or  wandered 
through  the  shrubberies,  smoking  their  pipes  together, 
like  a  pair  of  lovers — as  indeed  they  were.  Later  on, 
when  he  grew  impatient  again,  he  called  the  life  which  he 
was  leading  '  sluggish  ignoble  solitude,'  but  it  was  as  near 
an  approach  as  he  ever  knew  to  what  is  meant  by  happi- 
ness. This  summer  nothing  went  wrong  with  him. 
When  the  Templand  visit  was  over,  he  removed  to  Scots- 
brig  and  there  stayed,  turning  over  his  intended  article. 
Of  letters  he  wrote  few  of  any  interest — chiefly  to  his 
brother  John,  who  was  thinking  of  leaving  Lady  Clare, 
and  of  settling  in  London  to  be  near  Cheyne  Row. 
Carlyle's  advice  to  him  shows  curious  self-knowledge. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig :  August  13,  |839. 
If  your  lot  brought  you  near  me,  it  would,  of  course,  be  a  bless- 
ing to  me — to  us  both,  I  dare  say ;  for,  though  we  chaffer  and 
argue  a  good  deal — a  good  deal  too  much — yet  surely  there  is 
good  brotherly  agreement  between  us.  A  brother  is  a  great 
possession  in  this  world — one  of  the  greatest ;  yet  it  would  be  un- 
wise to  make  great  sacrifices  of  essentials  for  the  advantage  of 
being  close  together.  Ah  me  !  I  am  no  man  whom  it  is  desirable 
to  be  too  close  to — an  unhappy  mortal — at  least,  with  nen'es  that 
preappoint  me  to  continual  pain  and  loneliness,  let  me  have  what 


144  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

crowds  of  society  I  like.     To  work  is  the  sole  use  of  living.     But 
we  will  speculate  no  longer  ;  above  all,  we  will  not  complain. 

The  holiday  lasted  two  months  only.  '  W  ilhel  rn  Meister ' 
was  now  to  be  republished,  and  he  was  wanted  at  home. 
The  railway  had  just  been  opened  from  Preston  to  Lon- 
don ;  and  on  this  return  journey  he  made  his  first  experi- 
ence of  the  new  mode  of  locomotion. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  September  13,  1839.  • 
The  whirl  through  the  confused  darkness,  on  those  steam  wings, 
was  one  of  the  strangest  things  I  have  experienced — hissing  and 
dashing  on,  one  knew  not  whither.  We  saw  the  gleam  of  towns 
in  the  distance — unknown  towns.  We  went  over  the  tops  of 
houses — one  town  or  village  I  saw  clearly,  with  its  chimney  heads 
vainly  stretching  up  towards  us — under  the  stars  ;  not  under  the 
clouds,  but  among  them.  Out  of  one  vehicle  into  another,  snort- 
ing, roaring  we  flew :  the  likest  thing  to  a  Faust's  flight  on  the 
Devil's  mantle ;  or  as  if  some  huge  steam  night-bird  had  flung  you 
on  its  back,  and  was  sweeping  through  unknown  space  with  you, 
most  probably  towards  London.  At  Birmingham,  an  excellent 
breakfast,  with  deliberation  to  eat  it,  set  us  up  surprisingly ;  and 
so,  with  the  usual  series  of  phenomena,  we  were  safe  landed  at 
Euston  Square,  soon  after  one  o'clock.  We  slept  long  and  deep. 
It  was  a  great  surprise  the  first  moment  to  find  one  did  not  waken 
af  Scotsbrig.  Wretched  feelings  of  all  sorts  were  holding  carnival 
within  me.  The  best  I  could  do  was  to  keep  the  door  carefully 
shut  on  them.  I  sate  dead  silent  all  yesterday,  working  at 
*  Meister  ; '  and  now  they  are  gone  back  to  their  caves  again. 


CHAPTER   VIL 

A.D.  1839-40.     MT.  44-45. 

Review  of  Carlyle  by  Sterling — Article  on  CJliartism  offered  to 
Lockhart — Expanded  into  a  book — Dinner  in  Dover  Street — 
First  sight  of  Dickens — Lectures  on  Heroes — Conception  of 
Cromwell — Visit  from  Thirlwall — London  Library — Impres- 
sions of  Tennyson — Reviews — Puseyism— Book  to  be  written 
on  Cromwell. 

A  PLEASANT  surprise  waited  for  Carlyle  on  his  return  to 
London — an  article  upon  him  by  Sterling  in  the  '  West- 
minster Review.'  Sterling's  admiration  was  steadily  grow- 
ing— admiration  alike  for  his  friend's  intellect  and  char- 
acter. It  was  the  first  public  acknowledgment  of  Car- 
lyle's  '  magnitude '  which  had  been  made.  He  perhaps 
remembered  that  he  had  expressed  some  spleen  at  Sterling 
in  the  summer,  and  a  little  penitence  may  have  been  mixed 
with  his  gratitude. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chelsea :  September  29,  1839. 
.  .  .  Mill  says  it  is  the  best  thing  you  ever  wrote ;  and,  truly, 
so  should  I,  if  you  had  not  shut  my  mouth.     It  is  a  thing  all  glar- 
ing and  boiling  like  a  furnace  of  molten  metal : '  a  brave  thing, 
nay  a  vast  and  headlong,  full  of  generosity,  passionate  insight, 
lightning,  extravagance,  and  Sterlingism — such  an  article  as  we 
have  not  read  for  some  time  pa.st.     It  will  be  talked  of ;  it  will  be 
admired,  condemned,  and  create  astonishment  and  give  offence  far 
and  near.     My  friend,  what  a  notion  you  have  got  of  me  !     I  dis- 
cern certain  natural  features,  the  general  outline  of  shape  ;  but  it 
is  as  one  would  in  the  Air  Giant  of  the  Hartz,  huge  as  Opheueus, 
»  Sterling's  article  la  reprinted  by  Hare,  vol.  L,  p.  ^SSL 
Vol.  III. -10 


146  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

painted  there  as  one  finds  by  sunrise  and  early  vapour— i.e.  by 
Sterling's  heart  impinging  on  you  between  himself  and  the  '  West- 
minster Eeview.'  I  do  not  thank  you,  for  I  know  not  whether 
such  things  are  good ;  nay,  whether  they  are  not  bad  and  poison 
to  one  ;  but  I  will  still  say,  there  has  no  man  in  these  islands  been 
so  reviewed  in  my  time.  It  is  the  most  magnanimous  eulogy  I 
ever  knew  one  man  utter  of  another  man,  whom  he  knew  face  to 
face,  and  saw  go  grumbling  about  in  coat '  and  breeches,  a  poor 
concrete  reality  very  offensive  now  and  then.  God  help  you,  my 
man,  with  such  a  huge  Brocken  Spectre  Chimsera,  and  a  lot  of 
cub  chimseras  sucking  at  her.  I  would  not  be  in  youi'  shoes  for 
something ! 

Sterling's  appreciation,  when  read  now,  rather  seems  to 
fall  short  of  the  truth  than  to  exceed  it.  But  now  is  now, 
and  then  was  then — and  a  man's  heart  beats  when  he 
learns,  for  the  first  time,  that  a  brother  man  admires  and 
loves  him.  If  Carlyle  was  proud,  he  had  no  vanity,  and 
lie  allowed  no  vanity  to  grow  in  him.  He  set  himself  to 
his  article  for  Lockliart.  He  sent  for  Citoyenne,  which 
had  remained  till  now  with  Mr.  Marshall. 

I  go  out  to  ride  daily  (he  reported  on  October  8),  sometimes  in 
the  Park,  sometimes  over  the  river,  or  somewhere  else  into  the 
country — sometimes  I  fall  in  with  some  other  friend,  also  riding, 
and  then  it  is  quite  cheerful  to  go  trotting  together  through  green 
lanes,  from  one  open  common,  with  its  whin-bushes  and  high 
trees,  to  another.  My  horse  is  in  the  best  order,  and  does  seem 
to  do  me  good.  I  will  try  it  out,  and  see  what  good  comes  of  it, 
dear  though  it  be. 

JoiLvnaL 

October  23,  1839. — My  riding  keeps  me  solitary.  It  is  all  exe- 
cuted at  calling  hours  ;  the  hours  I  used  to  spend  in  visiting  or 
wandering  about  the  crowded  thoroughfares,  looking  at  the  noisy 
and,  to  me,  irrational,  inarticulate  spectacle  of  the  streets.  Green 
lanes,  swift  riding,  and  solitude — how  much  more  delightful !  For 
two  hours  every  day  I  have  almost  an  immunity  from  pain.  My 
poverty,  contrasted  with  the  expensiveness  of  riding,  makes  me 
enjoy  the  thing  more  ;  joy  on  a  basis  of  apprehension  ;  thankful- 
ness kept  constantly  alive  by  the  insecurity  of  the  thing  one  is 
thankful  for.     My  health  is  not  greatly,  yet  it  is  perceptibly,  im- 


'  ChaHimi.:  147 

proved.  I  have  distinctly  less  pain  in  all  hours.  Had  I  work  to 
keep  my  heai-t  at  rest,  I  should  be  as  well  off  as  I  have  almost  ever 
been.  Much  solitude  is  good  for  me  here.  Society  enough 
comes  to  me  of  its  own  accord.  Too  much  society  is  likely  to 
sweep  me  along  with  it,  ever  and  anon,  that  I,  too,  become  a  vain 
!  repeater  of  its  heai-says,  and  have  no  thought  or  knowledge  of  my 
^wn.  How  did  Goethe  work?  One  should  get  into  a  way  of 
profitably  occupying  every  day,  even  in  the  vague,  uncommanded, 
unlimited  condition  I  now  stand  in.  Articles,  reviews,  have  lost 
.their  chann  for  me.  It  seems  a  mere  threshing  of  dusty  straw. 
This  last  year,  it  is  very  strange,  I  have  for  the  first  time  these 
twelve  years — I  may  say  in  some  measure  the  fii-st  time  in  my  life 
— been  free,  almost  as  free  as  other  men  perhaps  are,  from  the  be- 
wildering terror  of  coming  to  actual  want  of  money.  Veiy  strange ! 
a  very  considerable  alleviation.  It  now  seems  as  if  I  actually 
might  calculate  on  contriving  some  way  or  other  to  make  bread  for 
myself  without  begging  it. 

Under  these  conditions,  and  riding  every  day,  Carlyle 
contrived  to  finish  without  fret  or  fume  the  hypothetical 
article  for  the  '  Quarterly ' — for  the  '  Quarteily '  as  had 
been  proposed,  yet,  as  it  grew  under  his  hand,  he  felt  but 
too  surely  that  in  those  pages  it  could  find  no  place. 
Could  the  Tory  party  five-and-forty  years  ago  have  ac- 
cepted Carlyle  for  their  prophet,  they  would  not  be  where 
they  are  now.  Ileat  and  motion,  the  men  of  science  tell 
us,  are  modes  of  the  same  force,  which  may  take  one  form 
or  the  other,  but  not  both  at  once.  So  it  is  with  social 
greatness.  The  Xoble  Lord  may  live  in  idleness  and  lux- 
ury, or  he  may  have  political  power,  but  lie  must  choose 
between  them.  If  he  prefer  the  first,  ho  will  not  keep 
the  second.  Carlyle  saw  too  plainly  that  for  him  in  that 
quarter  there  would  be  no  willing  audience. 

I  have  finished  (he  wrote,  November  8)  a  long  review  article, 
thick  pamphlet,  or  little  volume,  entitled  *  Chartism.'  Lockhart 
has  it,  for  it  was  partly  promised  to  him  ;  at  least  the  refusal  of  it 
was,  and  that,  I  conjecture,  will  be  all  he  will  enjoy  of  it.  Such 
an  article,  equally  astonishing  to  Girondins,  Radicals,  do-nothing 
Aristocrats,  Conservatives,  and  unbelieving  dilettante  Whigs,  can 


148  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

hope  for  no  harbour  in  any  Eeview.  Lockhart  refusing  it,  I  mean 
to  print  it  at  my  own  expense.  The  thing  has  been  in  my  head 
and  heart  these  ten,  some  of  it  these  twenty,  years.  One  is  right 
glad  to  be  delivered  of  such  a  thing  on  any  terms.  No  sect  in  our 
day  has  made  a  wretcheder  figure  than  the  Bentham  Radical  sect. 
Nature  abhors  a  vacuum — worthy  old  girl !  She  will  not  make  a 
wretched,  unsympathetic,  scraggy  Atheism  and  Egoism  fruitful  in 
her  world,  but  answers  to  it — 'Enough,  thou  scraggy  Atheism ! 
Go  thy  way,  wilt  thou  ?  " 

It  proved  as  he  expected  with  the  '  Quarterly.'  Lock- 
liart  probably  agreed  with  every  word  that  Carlyle  had 
written,  but  to  admit  a  lighted  rocket  of  that  kind  into 
the  Conservative  arsenal  might  have  shattered  the  whole 
concern.  Lockhart  '  sent  it  back  after  a  week,  seemingly 
not  without  reluctance,  saying  he  dared  not.'  It  was  then 
shown  to  Mill,  who  was  unexpectedly  delighted  with  it. 
The  '  Westminster  Review '  was  coming  to  an  end.  Mill 
was  now  willing  to  publish  '  Chartism '  in  his  last  number 
as  '  a  kind  of  final  shout,  that  he  might  sink  like  the 
Yengeur  with  a  broadside  at  the  water's  edge.'  Carlyle 
might  have  consented  ;  but  his  wife,  and  his  brother  John, 
who  was  in  England,  insisted  that  the  thing  was  too  good 
for  a  fate  so  ignoble.  The  ^  Westminster  Review '  was 
nothing  to  him,  that  he  should  sink  along  with  it.  This 
was  his  own  opinion  too,  which  for  Mill's  sake  he  had 
been  ready  to  w:aive. 

I  (he  said)  offered  them  this  very  thing  two  years  ago,  the  block- 
heads, and  they  dared  not  let  me  write  it  then.  If  they  had  taken 
more  of  my  counsel,  they  need  not  perhaps  have  been  in  a  sinking 
state  at  present.  But  they  went  their  own  way,  and  now  their 
Eeview  is  to  cease  ;  and  their  whole  beggarly  unbelieving  Radical- 
ism may  cease  too,  if  it  likes,  and  let  us  see  whether  there  be  not 
a  believing  Radicalism  possible.  In  short,  I  think  of  publishing 
this  piece,  which  I  have  called  'Chartism,'  about  the  poor,  their 
rights  and  their  wrongs,  as  a  little  separate  book.  Eraser  will 
print  it,  halving  the  profits.  It  may  be  out  probably  the  end  of 
this  month  (December  1). 


*  Chartism:  149 

The  book  was  not  long,  tlie  printers  were  expeditious, 
and  before  the  year  was  out  '  Chartisui '  was  added  to  the 
list  of  Carl^le's  published  works.  The  sale  was  rapid,  an 
edition  of  a  thousand  copies  being  sold  immediately — and 
the  large  lump  of  leaven  was  thrown  into  the  general 
trough  to  ferment  there  and  work  as  it  could.  *Meister,' 
the  most  unlike  it  of  all  imaginable  creations,  was  repub- 
lislied  at  tlie  same  time.  The  collected  'Miscellanies'  were 
also  passing  through  the  press. 

It  is  strange  work  with  me  (lie  said)  studying  these  essays  over 
again.  Ten  yeai's  of  my  life  lie  strangely  written  there.  It  is  I, 
and  it  is  not  I,  that  wrote  all  that.  They  are  as  I  could  make 
them  among  the  peat  bogs  and  other  confusions.  It  rather  seems 
the  people  like  them,  in  spite  of  all  their  crabbedness. 

'  Chartism  '  was  loudly  noticed  ;  *  considerable  revie\v- 
ing,  but  very  daft  reviewing.'  Men  wondered  ;  how  could 
they  choose  but  wonder,  when  a  writer  of  evident  power 
stripped  bare  the  social  disease,  told  them  that  their  reme- 
dies were  quack  remedies,  and  their  progress  was  progress 
to  dissolution  ?  The  Liberal  journals,  finding  their  *  for- 
mulas' disbelieved  in,  clamoured  tiiat  Carlyle  was  unor- 
thodox ;  no  Tladical,  but  a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing.  Yet 
what  he  said  was  true,  and  could  not  be  denied  to  be  true. 
'  They  approve  generally,'  he  said,  '  but  regret  very  much 
that  I  am  a  Tory.  Stranger  Tory,  in  my  opinion,  has  not 
been  fallen  in  with  in  these  later  generations.'  Again  a 
few  weeks  later  (February  11):  'The  people  are  begin- 
ning to  discover  that  I  am  not  a  Tory.  Ah,  no  I  but  one 
of  the  deepest,  though  perhaps  the  quietest,  of  all  the 
Radicals  now  extant  in  the  world — a  thing  productive  of 
small  comfort  to  several  persons.  They  have  said,  and 
they  will  say,  and  let  them  say.' 

He,  too,  had  had  his  say.  The  burden  on  liis  soul 
which  lay  between  him  and  other  work  had  been  thrown 
off.    Now  was  time  to  take  up  the  Commonwealth  iu 


150  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

earnest ;  bat  other  subjects  were  again  rising  between 
Carlyle  and  the  Commonwealth.  One  more,  and  this  the 
final,  course  of  lectures  was  to  be  delivered  this  spring ; 
and  it  was  to  contain  something  of  more  consequence  than 
its  predecessors,  something  which  he  could  wish  to  pre- 
serve. By  the  side  of  laissez-faire  and  '  democracy'  in  poli- 
tics there  was  growing  up  a  popular  philosophy  analogous 
to  it.  The  civilisation  of  mankind,  it  was  maintained 
(though  Mr.  Buckle  had  not  yet  risen  to  throw  the  theory 
into  shape),  expanded  naturally  with  the  growth  of  knowl- 
edge. Knowledge  spread  over  the  world  like  light,  and 
though  great  men,  as  they  were  called,  might  be  a  few 
inches  taller  than  their  fellows,  arid  so  catch  the  rays  a  few 
days  or  years  before  the  rest,  yet  the  rays  did  not  come 
from  them,  but  from  the  common  source  of  increasing  il- 
lumination. Great  men  were  not  essentially  superior  to 
common  men.  They  were' the  creatures  of  their  age,  not 
the  creators  of  it,  scarcely  even  its  guides ;  and  the  course 
of  things  would  have  been  very  much  the  same  if  this  or 
that  person  who  had  happened  to  become  famous  had 
never  existed.  Such  a  view  was  flattering  to  the  millions 
w^ho  were  to  be  invited  to  self-government.  It  was  the 
natural  corollary  of  the  theory  that  all  men  were  equal 
and  possessed  an  equal  right  to  have  their  opinions  repre- 
sented. It  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the  opinion  of  Car- 
lyle, who  held  that  the  welfare  of  mankind  depended 
more  on  virtue  than  on  scientific  discoveries ;  and  that 
scientific  discoveries  themselves  which  were  worth  the- 
name  were  achievable  only  by  truthfulness  and  manliness. 
The  immense  mass  of  men  he  believed  to  be  poor  creat- 
ures, poor  in  heart  and  poor  in  intellect,  incapable  of 
making  any  progress  at  all  if  left  to  their  own  devices, 
though  with  a  natural  loyalty,  if  not  distracted  into  self- 
conceit,  to  those  who  were  wiser  and  better  than  them- 
selves.    Every  advance  which  humanity  had  made  was 


Lectures  on  Heroes.  161 

due  to  special  individuals  supremely  gifted  in  mind  and 
character,  whom  Providence  sent  among  them  at  favoured 
epochs.  It  was  not  true,  then  or  ever,  that  men  were 
equal.  They  were  infinitely  unequal — unequal  in  intelli- 
gence, and  still  more  unequal  in  moral  pui*])ose.  So  far 
from  being  able  to  guide  or  govern  themselves,  their  one 
cliance  of  improvement  lay  in  their  submitting  to  their 
natural  superiors,  either  by  their  free  will,  or  else  by  com- 
pulsion. This  was  the  principle  which  he  proposed  to  il- 
lustrate in  a  set  of  discourses  upon  'Heroes  and  Hero- 
Worship.'  In  the  autumn  he  had  been  reading  about  the 
Arabs,  which  perhaps  suggested  the  idea  to  him. 

Journal. 

October,  1839. — Arabian  Tales  by  Lane ;  very  pious.  No  people 
so  religious,  except  the  English  and  Scotch  Puritans  for  a  season. 
Good  man  Mahomet,  on  the  whole  ;  sincere ;  a  fighter,  not  indeed 
with  perfect  triumph,  yet  with  honest  battle.  No  mere  sitter  in 
the  chimney-nook  with  theories  of  battle,  such  as  your  ordinary 
*  perfect '  characters  are.  The  *  vein  of  anger '  between  his  brows, 
beaming  black  eyes,  brown  complexion,  stout  middle  figure  ;  fond 
of  cheerful  social  talk — wish  I  knew  Arabic.  Cromwell !  How  on 
earth  could  he  be  treated  ?  Begin  to  see  him  at  times  in  some 
measure,  even  to  like  him  and  pity  him.  Voyons  !  Is  the  drama 
altogether  dead  ?    I  fear  so  ;  for  me  at  any  rate. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  February  27,  1840. 
I  am  beginning  seriously  to  meditate  my  course  of  lectures,  and 
have  even,  or  seem  to  have,  the  primordium  of  a  subject  in  me, 
though  not  *  nameable '  as  yet ;  and  the  dinners,  routs,  callei-s, 
confusions  inevitable  to  a  certain  length.  Ay  de  mi !  I  wish  I  was 
far  from  it.  No  health  lies  for  me  in  that  for  body  or  for  soul. 
Welfare,  at  least  the  absence  of  ill  fare  and  semi-delirium,  is  pos- 
sible for  me  in  solitude  only.  Solitude  indeed  is  sad  as  Oolgotha, 
but  it  is  not  mad  like  Bedlam.  Oh,  the  devil  bum  it !  there  is  no 
pleasing  of  you,  strike  where  one  will. 

'The  devil  burn  it,  there  is  no  pleasing  of  you! 'was 
the  saying  of  an  Irish  corporal  who  was  flogging  some  ill- 


152  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

deserver.  Whether  he  hit  him  high  or  hit  liim  low,  the 
victim  was  equally  dissatisfied.  Carlyle  complained  when 
alone,  and  complained  when  driven  into  the  world ;  din-, 
ner  parties  cost  him  his  sleep,  damaged  his  digestion, 
damaged  his  temper.  Yet  when  he  went  into  society  no 
one  enjoyed  it  more  or  created  more  enjoyment.  The 
record  of  adventures  of  this  kind  alternates  with  groans 
over  the  consequent  sufferings.  He  was  the  keenest  of 
observers  ;  the  game  was  not  ^vorth  the  candle  to  him,  but 
he  gathered  out  of  it  what  he  could.  Here  is  an  account 
of  a  dinner  at  the  Stanleys'  in  Dover  Street. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  March  17,  1840. 
There,  at  the  dear  cost  of  a  shattered  set  of  nerves  and  head  set 
whirling  for  the  next  eight-and-forty  hours,  I  did  see  lords  and 
lions — Lord  Holland  and  Lady,  Lord  Normanby,  &c. — and  then, 
for  soiree  upstairs,  Morpeth,  Lansdowne,  French  Guizot,  the 
Queen  of  Beauty,  &c.  Nay,  Pickwick,  too,  was  of  the  same  dinner 
party,  though  they  do  not  seem  to  heed  him  over-much.  He  is  a 
fine  little  fellow — Boz,  I  think.  Clear  blue,  intelligent  eves,  eye- 
brows that  he  arches  amazingly,  large  protrusive  rather  loose 
mouth,  a  face  of  most  extreme  mobility,  which  he  shuttles  about — 
eyebrows,  eyes,  mouth  and  all — in  a  very  singular  manner  while 
speaking.  Surmount  this  with  a  loose  coil  of.  common-coloured 
hair,  and  set  it  on  a  small  compact  figure,  very  small,  and  dressed 
S  la  D'Orsay  rather  than  well — this  is  Pickwick,  For  the  rest  a 
quiet,  shrewd- looking,  little  fellow,  who  seems  to  guess  pretty 
well  what  he  is  and  what  others  are.  Lady  Holland  is  a  brown- 
skinned,  silent,  sad,  concentrated,  proud  old  dame.  Her  face, 
when  you  see  it  in  profile,  has  something  of  the  falcon  character, 
if  a  falcon's  bill  were  straight ;  and  you  see  much  of  the  white  of 
her  eye.  Notable  word  she  spake  none — sate  like  one  wont  to  be 
obeyed  and  entertained.  Old  Holland,  whose  legs  are  said  to  be 
almost  turned  to  stove,  pleased  me  much.  A  very  large,  bald 
head,  small,  grey,  invincible,  composed-looking  eyes,  the  immense 
tuft  of  an  eyebrow  which  all  the  Foxes  have,  stiff  upper  lip,  roomy 
mouth  and  chin ,  short,  angry,  yet  modest  nose.  I  saw  there  a  fine 
old  Jarl — an  honest,  obstinate,  candid,  wholesomely  limited,  very 
effectual  and  estimable  old  man.     Of  the  rest  I  will  not  say  a  syl- 


Unrest.  153 

lable,  not  even  of  the  Queen  of  Beauty,  who  looked  rather  withered 
and  unwell. 

Siicli  scenes  might  amuse  while  they  lasted ;  but  shat- 
tered nerves  for  forty-eight  hours  were  a  heavy  price  to 
pay  for  them,  and  they  brought  no  real  pleasure.  To  Mr. 
Erskine  he  writes  in  the  middle  of  it : — 

Time  does  not  reconcile  me  to  this  immeasurable,  soul-confusing 
uproar  of  a  life  in  London.  I  meditate  passionately  many  times 
to  fly  from  it  for  hfe  and  sanity.  The  sound  of  clear  brooks,  of 
woody  solitudes,  of  sea- waves  under  summer  suns ;  all  this  in  one's 
fancy  here  is  too  beautiful,  like  sad,  forbidden  fruit.  Cor  irre- 
quietum  est.     We  will  wait  and  see. 

More  really  interesting  were  letters  which  came  to  him 
from  strangers  low  and  high,  who  were  finding  in  his 
writings  guidance  through  their  own  intellectual  perplexi- 
ties. Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  wrote  that  'since  he  had 
read  the  "  French  Revolution  "  he  had  longed  to  become 
acquainted  with  its  author.  He  had  found  in  that  book 
an  understanding  of  the  true  nature  of  history,  such  as  it 
delighted  his  heart  to  meet  wuth.  The  wisdom  and  elo- 
quence of  it  was  such  a  treasure  to  him  as  he  had  rarely 
met  with,  and  was  not  often  likely  to  meet  with  again.' 
A  poor  Paisley  weaver  thanked  him,  in  a  yet  moi'e  wel- 
come if  ill-spelt  missive,  for  having  tauglit  him  that  *  man 
does  not  live  by  demonstration,  but  by  faith.  The  world 
had  been  to  him  for  a  long  time  a  deserted  temple.  Car- 
lyle's  writings  had  restored  the  significance  of  things  to 
him,  and  his  voice  had  been  as  the  voice  of  a  beneficent 
spiritual  father.'  This  was  worthier  homage  than  the 
flattering  worship  of  Loudon  frivolity  which  injured  health 
and  temper. 

March  30,  1840.— I  pass  my  days  under  the  abominable  press- 
ure of  physical  misery— a  man  foiled.  I  mean  to  ride  diligently 
for  three  complete  months,  try  faithfully  whether  in  tliat  way  my 
insupportable  burden  au<l  imprisonment  cannot  be  alleviated  into 


154  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

at  least  the  old  degree  of  endurability.  And  failing  that,  I  shall 
pray  God  to  aid  me  in  the  requisite  decisive  measures,  for  posi- 
tively my  life  is  black  and  hateful  to  me.  Spent  as  I  am  forced  to 
spend  it  here,  I  once  for  all  must  not  and  will  not  continue  so.  I 
have  serious  thoughts  of  writing  my  lectures  down,  then  flaming 
about  over  both  hemispheres  with  them  (too  like  a  Oagliostroccio), 
to  earn  so  much  as  will  buy  the  smallest  peculium  of  annuity, 
whereon  to  retire  into  some  hut  by  the  seashore,  and  there  lie 
quiet  till  my  hour  come. 

'  Physical  misery  '  was  not  the  worst,  for  it  was  an  old 
failing  of  Carlyle's  that  when  he  was  uncomfortable  he 
could  not  keep  it  to  himself,  and  made  more  of  it  than  the 
reality  justified.  Long  before,  when  with  the  Bullers  at 
Kinnaird,  he  had  teri-ified  his  family  with  accounts  of  his 
tortures  from  dyspepsia,  and  had  told  them  afterwards  they 
should  have  known  that  wdien  he  cried  '  murder '  he  was 
not  always  being  killed.  His  wife  suffered  perhaps  more 
than  he  from  colds  and  pains  and  sleeplessness  ;  when  her 
husband  was  dilating  upon  his  own  sorrows,  he  often  foi*- 
got  hers,  or  made  them  worse  by  worry.  Charming,  witty, 
brilliant,  affectionately  playful  as  she  naturally  was,  she 
had  '  a  hot  temper,'  as  Carlyle  had  said,  and  a  tongue, 
when  she  was  angry,  like  a  cat's,  which  would  take  the 
skin  off  at  a  touch.  Here  is  a  brief  entry  in  Carlyle's 
Journal  significant  of  much. 

April  23,  1840. — Work  ruined  for  this  day.  Imprudently  ex- 
pressed complaints  in  the  morning  filled  all  the  sky  with  clouds — 
portending  grave  issues  ?  or  only  inane  ones  ?  I  am  sick  and  very 
miserable.  I  have  kept  riding  for  the  last  two  months.  My  health 
seems  hardly  to  improve.  I  have  been  throwing  my  lectures  upon 
paper — lectures  on  Heroes.  I  know  not  what  will  come  of  them. 
In  twelve  days  we  shall  see.  '  Miscellanies '  out,  and  '  Chartism  ' 
second  thousand.  If  I  were  a  little  healthier — ah  me !  all  were 
well. 

Among  such  elements  as  these  grew  the  magnificent 
addresses  on  great  men  and  their  import  in  this  world. 
Fine  flowers  will  grow  where  the  thorns  are  sharpest ;  and 


Lectures  on  Heroes.  155 

tlie  cactus  does  not  lose  its  prickles,  though  planted  in  the 
kindliest  soil.  Ix)ndon  did  not  suit  Carlyle,  but^would 
any  other  place  have  suited  him  better? 

Of  the  delivery  of  this  course  of  lectures  we  have  a  more 
particular  account  than  of  the  rest,  foi*  he  wrote  regularly, 
while  they  were  proceeding,  to  his  mother.  The  Urst  was 
on  the  Hero  as  God,  Odin  being  the  representative  figure ; 
Odin,  and  not  Another,  for  obvious  reasons ;  but  in  this, 
as  in  everything,  Carlyle  was  Xorse  to  the  heart. 

To  Margaret  Carlyky  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea:  May  6,  1840. 

First  lecture  over.  I  tliouglit  I  should  get  something  like  the 
tenth  part  of  my  meaning  unfolded  to  the  good  people,  and  I 
could  not  feel  that  I  had  got  much  more.  However  they  seemed 
content ;  sate  silent,  listening  as  if  it  had  been  gospel.  I  strive 
not  to  heed  my  own  notion  of  the  thing,  to  keep  down  the  conceit  and 
ambition  of  vie,  for  that  is  it.  I  was  not  in  good  tune.  I  had 
awoke  at  4^.  My  room  was  considerably  fuller  than  even  before — 
the  bonniest  and  brawest  of  jjeople.  "What  more  could  the  human 
mind  require  of  such  a  business?  I  fancy,  being  once  fairly  into 
the  subject,  I  shall  do  a  thought  better,  perhaps,  on  Friday, 
though  Mahomet  is  not  a  very  intimate  friend  to  any  of  us.  I  will 
make  a  book  of  it  perhaps,  and  be  hanged  to  them  !  What  the 
newsi)apers  say  for  or  against,  or  whether  they  say  anything,  ap- 
pears to  be  of  no  consequence  at  all. 

May  9. — I  gave  my  second  lecture  yesterday'  to  a  larger 
audience  than  ever,  and  with  all  the  success,  or  more,  that  was 
necessary  for  me.  It  was  on  Mahomet.  I  had  bishops  and  all 
kinds  of  people  among  my  hearei*s.  I  gave  them  to  know  that  tho 
poor  Ai-ab  had  j^oints  about  him  which  it  were  good  for  all  of  them 
to  imitate  ;  that  probably  they  were  more  of  quacks  than  he  ;  that, 
in  short,  it  was  altogether  a  new  kind  of  thing  they  were  hearing 
to-day.  The  people  seemed  greatly  astonished  and  greatly  pleased. 
I  vomited  forth  on  them  like  wild  Annandale  grapeshot.  They 
laughed,  applauded,  &c.  In  short,  it  was  all  right,  and  I  suppose 
it  was  by  much  the  best  lecture  I  shall  have  the  luck  to  give  this 
time  ;  for  really  it  all  depends  on  what  we  call  luck.     I  cannot  say 

*  The  Hero  as  Prophet ;  Mahomet 


156  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

in  tlie  least  whether  my  lecture  will  be  good  or  bad  when  I  begin 
to  deliver  it.  So  far  it  is  well  enough.  And  now,  alas  !  as  the 
price  of  a  good  lecture  my  nerves  are  thrown  into  such  a  flurry 
that  I  got  little  sleep  last  night,  and  am  all  out  of  sorts  to-day. 
Two  weeks  more  and  the  sore  business  is  done,  and  perhaj^s  I 
shall  never  try  it  another  time.  My  audience  is  between  two  and 
three  hundred,  and  grew  a  great  deal  larger  after  the  first  lecture. 
I  expect  to  clear  200/.  out  of  it.  That  is  the  result,  and  next  year 
I  hope  I  may  be  able  to  dispense  with  that  aid,  since  it  must  be 
purchased  with  such  a  tirrivee,  which  I  like  so  ill. 

The  third  and  fourth  lectures  were  on  the  Hero  as  Poet, 
Dante  and  Shakespeare  being  the  representatives ;  and 
the  Hero  as  Priest,  with  Luther  and  Knox. 

May  20. — Fifth  lecture  *  delivered  yesterday.  Jane  says,  and 
indeed  I  rather  think  it  is  true,  that  these  last  two  lectures  are 
among  the  best  I  ever  gave.  She  says  the  very  best,  but  I  do  not 
think  that ;  and  certainly  they  have  not  done  me  nearly  so  much 
mischief  as  the  others  were  wont.  I  feel  great  pain  and  anxiety 
till  I  get  them  done  on  the  day  when  they  are  to  be  done  ;  but  no 
excessive  shattering  of  myself  to  pieces  in  consequence  of  that. 
The  thing  seems  a  thing  I  could  learn  to  stand  by-and-by.  Be- 
sides I  am  telling  the  people  matters  that  belong  much  more  to 
myself  this  year,  which  is  far  more  interesting  to  me.  I  fancy 
myself  to  be  perhaps  offending  this  man  to-day,  and  that  man 
another  day,  but  I  say,  '  No  help  for  it,  friends ;  you  must  just 
w^ait ;  see  how  it  will  turn,  and  adjust  yourselves ;  if  it  do  not 
turn  well  for  you,  the  story  must  be  told,'  and  so  it  goes  along 
tolerably  well. 

May  23. — I  got  through  the  last  lecture  yesterday  in  very  toler- 
able style,^  seemingly  much  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  parties  ;  and 
the  people  all  expressed  in  a  great  variety  of  ways  much  very 
genuine-looking  friendliness  for  me.  I  contrived  to  tell  them 
something  about  poor  Cromwell,  and  I  think  to  convince  them 
that  he  was  a  great  and  true  man,  the  valiant  soldier  in  England 
of  what  John  Knox  had  preached  in  Scotland.  In  a  word,  the 
people  seemed  agreed  that  it  was  my  best  course  of  lectures,  this. 
And  now  you  see  I  am  handsomely  through  it,  and  ought  to  be 
very  thankful.     I  will  not  be  in  haste  to  throw  myself  into  such  a 

»  The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters.  ^  The  Hero  as  King. 


Third  Course  of  Lectures,  157 

tumble  again.  It  stirs  me  all  up  into  ferment,  fret,  and  confusion, 
such  as  I  hate  altogether  ;  and  now  that  I  have  got  some  fraction 
of  cash  one  way  and  another  I  can  wait.  I  will  keep  my  horse  a 
while  longer,  dear  as  it  is,  and  try  a  little  further  whether  there  is 
not  some  good  use  in  it — worth  25  shillings  a  week — ^yea  or  no. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  May  20,  1840. 
The  lecturing  business  went  off  with  sufficient  eclat.  The  course 
was  generally  judged,  and  I  rather  join  therein  myself,  to  be  the 
bad  best  I  have  yet  given.  On  the  last  day — Friday  last — I  went 
to  speak  of  Cromwell  with  a  head  full  of  air;  you  know  that 
wretched  physical  feeling  ;  I  had  been  concerned  with  drugs,  had 
awakened  at  five,  <fec.  It  is  absolute  martyrdom.  My  tongue 
would  hardly  wag  at  all  when  I  got  done.  Yet  the  good  people 
sate  breathless,  or  broke  out  into  all  kinds  of  testimonies  of  good- 
will ;  seemed  to  like  very  much  indeed  the  huge  ragged  image  I 
gave  them  of  a  believing  Calvinistic  soldier  and  reformer.  *  Suu- 
clear,  nucleus  of  intellect  and  force  and  faith,  in  its  wild  circum- 
ambient element  of  darkness,  hypochondriac  miseiy  and  quasi- 
madness,  in  direct  communication  once  more  with  the  innermost 
deep  of  things.'  In  a  word,  we  got  right  handsomely  through. 
My  health  is  certainly,  one  would  think,  better  than  it  was  last 
year  ;  at  least,  I  have  far  more  clearness,  vigour  of  mind  ;  but  all 
secondary  symptoms  seem  as  bad  as  ever — want  of  sleej),  &c.  I 
rush  out  into  the  solitary  woods  and  gi'een  places.  The  air  is 
odorous  with  blossoms  ;  the  sight  reposes  itself  on  a  world  of 
bursting  greenness.  Three  times  out  in  the  Wimbledon  region  I 
have  heard  the  cuckoo  almost  with  teai-s.  Thank  Grod  I  feel  as  if 
there  did  lie  a  little  more  in  me,  as  if  my  continued  life  and 
misery  was  not  for  no  purpose. 

This  was  Carlyle's  last  appearance  on  the  platform. 
He  never  spoke  in  public  again  till  twenty-six  years  after, 
when  lie  addressed  the  students  in  Edinburgh.  His  better 
nature  disapproved  of  these  exhibitions.  Writing  to 
Erskine,  who  had  w^ished  to  be  present  at  this  final 
course,  he  said  : — 

Let  all  that  love  me  keep  far  away  on  occasions  of  that  kind.  I 
am  in  no  case  so  sorry  for  myself  as  when  standing  up  there  be- 


158  CarlyhSs  Life  in  London. 

wildered,  distracted,  nine-tenths  of  my  poor  faculty  lost  in  terror 
and  wretchedness,  a  spectacle  to  men.  It  is  my  most  ardent  hope 
that  this  exhibition  may  be  my  last  of  such  ;  that  Necessity,  with 
her  bayonet  at  my  back,  may  never  again  drive  me  up  thither,  a 
creature  more  fit  for  uttering  himself  in  a  flood  of  inarticulate 
tears  than  any  other  way. 

He  had  tlioiight,  as  has  been  seen,  of  repeating  the  ex- 
periment in  America.  He  knew  well  enough  that  if  he 
resolutely  tried  he  conld  succeed.  But  to  succeed  he 
knew  also  that  he  would  have  to  part  with  his  natural 
modesty,  the  noblest  part  of  him,  as  of  every  man.  He 
must  part,  too,  with  his  love  of  truth.  The  orator,  in  the 
rush  and  flow  of  words,  cannot  always  speak  truth,  can- 
not even  try  to  speak  truth  ;  for  he  speaks  to  an  audience 
which  reacts  upon  him,  and  he  learns  as  he  goes  on  to 
utter,  not  the  facts  as  he  knows  them  to  be,  but  the  facts 
shaped  and  twisted  to  please  his  hearers.  He  shut  his 
ears  therefore  to  the  treacherous  sii-en,  and  turned  back  to 
his  proper  function.  The  lectures  on  Heroes  were  to  be 
written  out  and  made  into  a  book.  This  was  the  occupa- 
tion which  he  had  laid  out  for  himself  for  the  summer; 
and  there  was  to  be  no  change  to  the  Xortli  till  '  this  bit 
of  work  was  accomplished.' 

There  was  the  usual  relapse  after  the  excitement,  less 
extreme  than  in  other  years,  but  sufficient  to  call  up  his 
melancholy  and  morbid  humor.     On  June  3  he  writes  : — 

I  rode  with  Fonblanque  of  the  '  Examiner  '  one  evening  ;  rather 
poor  company.  I  feel  on  the  whole  better  alone.  No  man  nor 
body  of  men  can  do  much  for  me,  not  if  they  would  take  all  the 
trouble  in  the  world.  Could  the  whole  of  them  unwrap  the  bale- 
ful Nessus  shirt  of  perpetual  pain  and  isolation  in  which  I  am 
lamed,  embated,  ,and  swathed  as  in  enchantment  till  I  quit  this 
earth  ?  Not  they.  Let  them  go  their  road.  Go  thou  also  in 
God's  name  ! 

Occasionally  there  came  a  friend  to  him  of  a  better 
type.    Under  the  same  date  he  tells  his  mother  that  Thirl- 


ThhiwaU,  Bishop  of  St.  Dawid/s,  159 

wall  had  been  in  Cbeyne  Row  to  have  a  talk  and  smoko 
with  him — '  the  massive  Cantabi'igian  Scholar  and  Sceptic,' 
whom  he  had  twice  already  fallen  in  with.  Thirlwall,  after 
Ills  difference  with  the  anthorities  at  Cambridge,  was  now 
on  the  eve  of  promotion  to  a  bishopric.  Carlyle  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  condition  of  the  *  massive  scholar's' 
thoughts  on  theological  mysteries.  Be  told  nie  that  Thirl- 
wall lay  three  nights  awake  when  the  see  of  St.  David's 
was  offered  to  him,  considering  whether  he  was  fit  for  such 
a  place,  or  the  place  for  him.  He  did  not  himself  ap- 
prove of  men  acting  parts  which  were  not  natural  to  them. 
How  Thirlwall  acted  his  part  he  liad  an  opportunity  of 
judging  when  he  paid  the  bishop  a  visit  at  his  palace. 
The  English  Church  will  probably  never  again  have  a  prel- 
ate of  ThirlwalTs  power  or  character,  and  I  may  mention 
liere  another  small  incident  connected  with  Jiis  elevation 
to  the  bench.  Charles  Buller,  who  had  known  Thirlwall 
at  Cambridge,  told  me  that  ho  among  others  bad  recom- 
mended him  to  Lord  Melbourne.  '  Yes,'  Melbourne  said, 
'  but  hang  it '  (the  real  word  was  stronger),  *  he  is  not  or- 
thodox in  that  preface  to  Schleiermacher.'  Buller  an- 
swered that  he  thought  his  friend  sufficiently  orthodox 
for  the  purpose.  They  adjourned  to  Melbourne's  library, 
and  spent  a  morning  over  .'  the  Fathers,'  searching  for  prec- 
edents for  Thirlwall's  opinions. 

Other  intruders  in  Cheyne  How  were  treated  with  less 
respect ;  for  instance — 

A  wretched  Dud  called  ,  member,  I  think,  for  , 

called  one  day  with  his  wife,  a  dirty  Httle  Atheistic  Radical,  living 

seemingly  in  a  mere  element  of  pretentious  twaddle  with 

and and  the  literaiy  vapidities  of  his  day.     Jane  says  I 

treated  him  tnliumanly,  as  a  bulldog  might  some  ill-favoured  mes- 
sin,  for  my  nerves  were  shattered  asunder  by  a  gallop  in  the  wind. 

The  table  lay  covered  for  dinner,  and  took  to  arguing 

about  the  Ck>pyright  BilL     One  day  there  stepped  in  a  very  curi- 


160  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

ous  little  fellow,  Dr.  Thomas  Murray, '  whom  you  recollect  with- 
out the  Doctor,  as  of  Edinburgh  and  Literary  Galloway.  There  is 
hardly  any  change  in  the  little  man.  Worldly,  egoistic,  small, 
vain,  a  poor  grub  in  whom  j)erhaps  was  still  some  remnant  of  bet- 
ter instincts,  whom  one  could  not  look  at  without  impressive  rem- 
iniscences. He  did  not  come  back  to  me,  nor  did  I  want  it, 
though  I  asked  him. 

Shortly  after  Carl jle  went  to  a  party  at  the  Dud's  whom 
he  had  handled  so  roughly,  perhaps  to  make  up  for  his 
rudeness. 

O'Connell,  Bowring,  Hickson,  South  wood  Smith — pinchbeck 
people  all,  what  I  called  a  literary  political  swell-mob.  O'Con- 
nell is  beginning  to  look  very  old.  There  was  a  celebrated  Flor- 
entine, Signora  Vespucci,  there,  very  dashing  in  turban  and  stage- 
tragicalities,  but  she  sjjoke  only  French,  and  I  declined  doing 
more  than  look.     The  earth  has  bubbles. 

He  was  sadly  wearied  with  London  and  its  ways,  and 
with  himself  most  of  all. 

June  15,  1840. — My  soul  longs  extremely  to  live  altogether  in 
the  country  again,  and  yet  there,  too,  I  should  not  be  well.  I 
shall  never  be  other  than  ill,  wearied,  sickhearted,  heavy-laden, 
till  once  we  get  to  the  final  rest,  I  think.  God  is  good.  I  am  a 
poor  poltroon  to  complain.  Dinners  I  avoid  as  the  very  devil. 
'  What's  ta  use  on  'em  ? '  What  are  lords  coming  to  call  on  one 
and  fill  one's  head  with  whims?  They  ask  you  to  go  among 
champagne,  bright  glitter,  semi-poisonous  excitements  w^hich  you 
do  not  like  even  for  the  moment,  and  you  are  sick  for  a  week 
after.  As  old  Tom  White  said  of  whisky,  '  Keep  it— Deevil  a  ever 
I'se  better  than  when  there's  no  a  drop  on't  i'  my  weam.'  So  say 
I  of  dinner  popularity,  lords  and  lionism — Keep  it ;  give  it  to 
those  that  like  it. 

The  slightly  happier  side  appears  in  a  letter  of  the  same 
date  to  his  sister  : — 

I  stay  here  because  I  am  here,  and  see  not  on  the  whole  where 
I  could  get  forward  with  my  work  much  better.  The  heat  has 
never  yet  afflicted  me  much.     The  horse  is  of  considerable  use, 

1  Carlyle's  early  friend  and  correspondent.  See  Forty  Years  of  Carlyle's 
Life,  &c.,  vol.  i.  p.  37. 


London  Library.  161 

carries  me  out  into  the  clear  afternoon  air.  The  bright  greenness 
of  the  worhl  shows  nie  how  like  Elysium  it  is.  Alas !  I  know 
well  if  I  were  there  daily  and  always,  I  should  care  little  for  it, 
except  on  compulsion.  I  go  little  into  the  town,  call  on  nobody 
there.  They  can  come  here  if  they  want  me  ;  if  not  I  shall  like 
it  still  better.  Our  old  wooden  Battei-sea  bridge  takes  me  over 
the  river ;  in  ten  minutes'  swift  trotting  I  am  fairly  away  from  the 
monster  and  its  bricks.  All  lies  behind  me  like  an  enormous 
world-filling  2>^;//s<e7-,  infinite  potter's  furnace,  sea  of  smoke,  with 
steeples,  domes,  gilt  crosses,  high  black  architecture  swimming  in 
it,  really  beautiful  to  look  at  from  some  knoll-top  while  the  sun 
shines  on  it.  I  fly  away,  away,  some  half-dozen  miles  out.  The 
monster  is  then  quite  buried,  its  smoke  rising  like  a  great  dusky- 
coloured  mountain  melting  into  the  infinite  clear  sky.  All  is  green, 
musical,  bright.  One  feels  that  it  is  God's  world  this  ;  and  not  an 
infinite  Cockneydom  of  stoor  and  din  after  all. 

In  the  midst  of  his  work  he  was  still  pushing  forward 
the  London  Library.  On  June  24,  a  meeting  was  held  at 
the  Freemasons' Tavern.  Lord  Eliot  was  in  the  chair; 
Lords  Montague,  Ilowick,  and  Lyttelton — Mihnan,  Milnes, 
Cornewall  Lewis,  John  Forster,  Helps,  Bulwer,  Gladstone, 
James  Spedding,  George  Yenables — all  men  who  were 
then  in  the  first  rank,  or  afterwards  rose  into  it,  were 
gathered  together  by  Carlyle's  efforts.  Thirlwall  warmly 
interested  himself.  Carlyle  represented  that,  of  the  in- 
numerable evils  of  England,  *  there  was  no  remediable 
worse  one  than  its  condition  as  to  books,'  *  a  condition 
worthier  of  Dahomey  than  of  England.'  He  could  bear 
his  mournful  testimony  that  he  never,  in  his  whole  life, 
had  for  one  month  complete  access  to  books — such  access 
as  he  would  have  had  in  Germany,  in  France,  or  anywhere 
else  iu  the  civilized  earth.  Books  were  written,  not  for 
rich  men,  but  for  all  men.  Every  human  being  had  by 
the  nature  of  the  case  a  ri/jht  to  hear  what  other  wise 
human  beings  had  spoken  to  him.  It  was  one  of  the 
rights  of  man,  and  a  cruel  injustice  if  denied. 

The  defect  grew  out  of  the  conditiou  of  the  English 
Vol.  m— 11 


162  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

mind.  England  liitlierto  had  supposed  that  the  Bible  had 
contained  everything  which  it  was  indispensable  for  man 
to  know ;  and  Bibles  wxre  within  the  reach  of  the  Imm- 
blest.  But  England  was  growing,  growing  it  knew  not 
into  what,  but  visibly  needing  further  help.  The  meeting 
agreed  unanimously  that  a  library  should  be  established. 
Subscription  lists  were  opened  and  swiftly  filled.  Com- 
petent persons  were  chosen  to  collect  books  ;  a  house  was 
purchased.  The  thing  was  done,  and  done  most  admi- 
rably, 3'et  Carlyle  himself  remained  miserable  as  ever. 
'  Alas  ! '  he  wrote  on  July  3,  '  1  get  so  dyspeptical,  melan- 
cholic, half  mad  in  the  London  summer  :  all  courage  to  do 
anything  but  hold  my  peace  fades  away  ;  I  dwindle  into 
the  pusillanimity  of  the  ninth  part  of  a  tailor,  feel  as  if  I 
had  nothing  I  could  do  but  "  die  in  my  hole  like  a  poi- 
soned rat." '  It  was  true,  indeed,  that  he  had  a  special 
reason  for  lamentation  at  that  particular  moment.  He 
had  been  summoned  to  serve  as  a  special  juryman  at  West- 
minster. He  appealed  to  Buller  to  deliver  him.  Buller 
told  him  there  %vas  a  way  of  escape  if  he  liked  to  use  it — 
'  he  could  be  registered  as  a  Dissenting  preacher.'  He 
had  to  go,  and  the  worst  of  it  was  he  had  to  go  for  noth- 
ing, and  the  futility  was  a  text  for  fresh  indignation. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  July  1,  1840. 
These  three  days  I  have  been  kept  in  quite  special  annoyance 
by  two  summonses  to  go  up  to  Westminster  and  serve  as  a  jury- 
man, in  two  different  courts — both  at  once,  too.  Is  not  that  a 
peculiar  beauty  ?  The  whole  aspect  of  the  thing,  the  maddest- 
looking  stew  of  lies,  and  dust,  and  foul  breath,  fills  me  with  de- 
spair. I  attended  two  days,  neither  of  my  cases  coming  on.  I  in- 
quired of  all  persons  what  I  had  to  do  or  look  for — in  vain.  There 
was  no  gleam  of  daylight  in  it  for  me,  not  so  much  as  a  seat  to  sit 
down  upon.  At  length  I  followed  the  hest  of  nature,  and  came 
quietly  away,  out  of  the  place  which  I  could  understand  nothing 
of,  except  that  I  was  veiy  sick  and  miserable  in  it,  determined  to 


Tennyson.  163 

let  nature  and  accident  work  out  an  isstie  in  it  which  I  could  un- 
derstand. They  have  a  power,  it  seems,  of  fining  me  to  the  extent 
of  100/.,  but  are  not  like  to  do  it.  The  world  I  live  in  is  too  mad, 
and  I  am  not  patient  enough  of  its  madness.  My  soul  is  sick  of 
it,  impatient  of  it,  contemptuous  of  it,  desiring  or  expecting  noth- 
ing more  in  general  than  to  be  well  out  of  it,  with  my  work  well 
done.  The  latter  is  an  important  point ;  thank  God  !  it  grows  to 
seem  to  me  even  more  important. 

If  destiny  in  tlie  shape  of  officials  afflicted  with  one 
hand,  it  sometimes  brought  anodynes  in  the  other.  One 
evening,  when  he  came  home  from  his  walk,  he  found 
Tennyson  sitting  with  Mrs.  Carlyle  in  the  garden,  smok- 
ing comfortably,  lie  admired  and  almost  loVed  Tenny- 
son.    He  say  ft  : — 

A  fine,  large-featured,  dim-eyed,  bronze-coloured,  shaggy- 
headed  man  is  Alfred  ;  dusty,  smoky,  free  and  easy,  who  swims 
outwardly  and  inwardly  with  great  composure  in  an  inarticulate 
element  of  tmnquil  chaos  and  tobacco  smoke.  Great  now  and 
then  when  he  does  emerge — a  most  restful,  brotherly,  solid- 
hearted  man. 

Such  a  visit  was  the  best  of  medicine. 

July  15. — My  health  (he  writes)  continues  very  uncertain,  my 
spirits  fluctuating  between  restless  flutter  of  a  make-believe  satis- 
faction, and  the  stillness  of  avowed  misery,  which  latter  I  have 
grown  by  long  practice  to  think  almost  the  more  supportable  state. 
The  meaning,  I  suppose,  is  that  my  nervous  system  is  altogether 
weak,  excitable — the  nervous  system  and  whatsoever  depends  on 
that. 

Innocent  affectionate  letters  came  from  Scotsbrig. 

To  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig:  July  19, 1840. 
My  dear  Son, — I  received  your  letter  and  was  very  glad  to  see  it, 
and  hear  that  you  were  in  your  usual  way — we  are  going  on  in  our 
old  way.  We  got  little  good  of  the  sea  ;  the  weather  was  so  cold. 
I  saw  Mary,  however,  and  Jean  was  at  Mary's  also  when  I  was 
there — all  well,  James  and  the  children. 
Oh,  have  we  not  great  reason  of  thankfulness  to  the  Giver  of  all 


164  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

good  ?  It  was  our  sacrament  last  Sabbath,  and  many  good  things 
we  heard,  could  we  put  them  in  practice  ;  but  of  ourselves  we  can 
do  nothing.  May  the  Good  Shepherd  watch  over  us,  and  enable 
us  to  perform  our  vows  made  to  Him  !  He  will  keep  them  in  j)er- 
fect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  Him.  For  ever  blessed  is  His 
name,  and  let  all  the  people  say  Amen  and  Amen ! 

I  hear  you  are  very  busy  with  your  lectures.  I  wish  you  speedily 
and  well  through  with  them,  and  healthy  in  soul  and  body.  I  still 
hope  to  see  you,  if  we  are  spared,  this  summer. 

The  weather  here  is  at  present  very  stormy  and  wet ;  but  it  is  no 
wonder  if  we  have  unfruitful  seasons,  for  we  are  a  people  laden  with 
iniquity,  like  Israel  of  old.  When  God's  judgments  are  abroad, 
we,  the  inhabitants  of  earth,  should  learn  righteousness.  May  God 
enable  us  so  io  do,  and  to  His  name  be  all  the  praise  ! 

Now,  Tom,  I  am  much  gratified  with  your  attention  in  writing 
so  to  me.  Believe  me  I  would  also,  if  I  could  write.  Give  my 
kindest  love  to  your  dearest.  Your  own  mother, 

M.  A.  O. 

He  could  not  be  wholly  siifPocated  with  the  London 
miasma,  when  so  fragrant  a  breath  of  pure  air  could  blow 
in  upon  him.  The  summer  number  of  the  '  Edinburgh 
Eeview '  was  announced.  He  had  heard  that  he  was  to 
be  '  annihilated,'  and  that  Macaulay  was  to  be  the  execu- 
tioner— the  real  writer  was  Herman  Merivale — and  it  was 
under  this  false  impression  that  he  remarked  on  the  article 
wdien  he  read  it. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  July  24,  1840. 
Macaulay's  article  is  not  so  bad  ;  on  the  whole,  rather  interest- 
ing to  me,  and  flattering  rather  than  otherwise.  '  See,'  I  said  to 
Jane,  '  we  have  produced  an  effect  even  on  Whiggery,  awakened  an 
appetite  under  the  ribs  of  death.'  *  Awakened  an  indigestion,'  she 
answered.  That  really  it  is.  One  thing  struck  me  much  in  this 
Macaulay,  his  theory  of  Liberal  government.  He  cousiders  Ee- 
form  to  mean  a  judicious  combining  of  those  that  have  any  money 
to  keep  down  those  that  have  none.  *  Hunger '  among  the  great 
mass  is  irremediable,  he  says.  That  the  jngs  be  taught  to  die  without 
squealing :  there  is  the  sole  improvement  possible  according  to 
him.     Did  Whiggery  ever  express  itself  in  a  more  damnable  man- 


Reviei08.  1C5 

ner?    He  and  I  get  onr  controversy  rendered  altogether  precise  in 
this  way. 

His  theory  of  Dumouriez's  campaign  is  also  altogether  amazing 
from  a  man  of  any  judgment— Whiggish  to  the  backbone.  And, 
lastly,  Robespierre's  £tre  SuprGme  being  a  religion  of  the  same  sort 
as  that  of  Cromwell — oh  Babington,  what  a  cant !  Didst  thou  ever 
see  a  cant  in  this  world  ?  No — a  man  in  a  jaundice  never  sees  the 
colour  yellow.  At  bottom,  this  Macaulay  is  but  a  poor  creatuie 
with  his  dictionary  literatui-e  and  erudition,  his  saloon  arrogance. 
He  has  no  vision  in  him.  He  will  neither  see  nor  do  any  great 
thing,  but  be  a  poor  Holland  House  unbeliever,  with  spectacles 
instead  of  eyes,  to  the  end  of  him. 

He  was  undeceived  about  the  authorship  of  this  article. 
*  I  was  heartily  glad  to  liear  this,'  he  said  ;  '  of  Macaulay 
I  have  still  considerable  liopes.'  The  *  Quarterly '  liad 
also  an  article,  the  writer  being  William  Sewell,  a  High 
Church  leader  on  his  own  account,  and  then  a  rising  star 
in  the  Oxford  world.  Merivale  had  been  ponderous  and 
politico-economic;  Sewell  was  astonishing,  as  indeed  the 
whole  Oxford  movement  was,  to  Carlyle. 

Did  you  (he  wrote  to  Sterling),  in  the  course  of  your  historical 
inquiries,  ever  fall  in  with  any  phenomenon  adequately  compara- 
ble to  Puseyism  ?  The  Church  of  England  stood  long  upon  her 
tithes  and  her  decencies  ;  but  now  she  takes  to  shouting  in  the 
market-place,  *  My  tithes  are  nothing,  my  decencies  are  nothing  ; 
I  am  either  miraculous  celestial  or  else  nothing.'  It  is  to  me  the 
fatallest  symptom  of  speedy  cliange  she  ever  exhibited.  What  an 
alternative !  Men  will  soon  see  whether  you  are  mii-aculous  celes- 
tial or  not.      Were  a  pair  of  breaches  ever  known  to  beget  a  son  ? 

Reputation  in  America  brought  visitors  to  Cheyne  Eow 
from  that  country — a  young,  unnamed  Boston  lady,  among 
others,  whom  lie  called  a  'diseased  rosebud.'  Happily 
Anicrica  yielded  something  else  than  '  sweet  sensibility.' 
it  yielded  handsome  sums  of  money;  and,  before  the 
Slimmer  was  over,  he  had  received  from  that  quarter  as 
much  as  400^.  There  was  an  honourable  sense  across  the 
Atlantic  that,  although  novelists,  <fec.,  might  be  fair  prey, 


166  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

Carljle  ought  to  be  treated  honestly.    About  money  there 
was  no  more  anxiety. 

August  1,  1840. — I  am  not  hkely  (he  could  say)  to  be  in  want  of 
cash,  for  any  time  visible  yet.  Much  cash,  I  feel  often,  would  do 
me  no  good.  I  begin  to  grow  more  and  more  quiescent.  The 
rule  of  heeding  no  hearsay  of  others,  but  minding  more  and  more 
exclusively  what  /  do  like  or  dislike,  what  is  really  important  for 
me  or  not  for  me,  shows  many  things  in  a  new  light.  I  find  in  the 
British  Empire  astonishingly  little  that  it  would  do  me  essential 
benefit  to  have.  I  sit  in  a  sort  of  mournful  inexpugnable  acquies- 
cence, and  look  at  the  green  and  paved  world,  really  not  very 
covetous  of  anything  connected  with  the  one  or  the  other. 

It  was  now  August.  The  Lectures  on  Heroes  were  by 
this  time  nearly  ^yritten  out.  He  had  taken  no  holiday  ; 
but,  as  the  end  w^as  now  in  sight,  he  allowed  himself  a 
week's  riding  tour  in  Sussex  on  '  Citoyenne.'  Hnrstmon- 
ceaux  and  Julius  Hare's  parsonage  was  the  furthest  point 
•which  he  reached,  returning  without  misadventure  by 
Tunbridge  and  Sevenoaks.  He  rode  better  than  his  loose 
seat  seemed  to  promise.  Mrs.  Carlyle  described  to  us, 
soine  years  after,  in  her  husband's  presence,  his  setting  out 
on  this  expedition ;  she  drew  him  in  her  finest  style  of 
mockery — his  cloak,  his  knapsack,  his  broad-brimmed  hat, 
his  preparation  of  pipes,  &c. — comparing  him  to  Dr.  Syn- 
tax. He  laughed  as  loud  as  any  of  us :  it  was  impossible 
not  to  laugh  ;  but  it  struck  me,  even  then,  that  the  wit, 
however  brilliant,  was  rather  untender.  On  August  23, 
late  in  the  afternoon,  he  had  substantially  finished  his 
work,  and  he  went  out,  as  he  always  did  on  these  occasions, 
to  compose  himself  by  a  walk. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  August  23,  1840. 
The  tea  was  up  before  I  could  stir  from  the  spot.     It  was  to- 
wards sunset  when  I  first  got  into  the  air,  with  the  feeling  of  a 
finished  man — finished  in  more  than  one  sense.     Avoiding  crowds 
and  highways,  I  went  along  Battersea  Bridge,  and  thence  by  a 


llie  Lectures  on  Heroes  Finished,  107 

wondrous  path  across  cow  fields,  mud  ditches,  river  embankments, 
over  a  waste  expanse  of  what  attempted  to  pass  for  country,  won- 
di'ous  enough  in  the  darkening  dusk,  especially  as  I  had  never 
been  there  before,  and  the  very  road  was  uncertain.  I  had  left 
my  watch  and  my  purse.  I  had  a  good  stick  in  my  hand.  Boat 
people  sate  diinking  about  the  Red  House ;  steamers  snorting  about 
the  river,  each  with  a  lantern  at  its  nose.  Old  women  sate  in 
strange  cottages  trimming  their  evening  fiire.  Bewildered-looking 
mysterious  coke  furnaces  (with  a  very  bad  smell)  glowed  at  one 
place,  I  know  not  why.  Windmills  stood  silent.  Blackguai'ds, 
improper  females,  and  miscellanies  sauntered,  harmless  all.  Chel- 
sea lights  burnt  many-hued,  bright  over  the  water  in  the  distance 
— under  the  great  sky  of  silver,  under  the  great  still  twilight.  So 
I  wandered  full  of  thoughts,  or  of  things  I  could  not  think. 

Ruskiii  liiuiself,  when  working  most  deliberately,  never 
drew  a  more  exquisite  picture  in  words  than  this  unstud- 
ied reflection  of  a  passing  experience.  In  such  mood  the 
lectures  were  completed,  and,  as  usual,  Carlyle  was  entirely 
dissatisfied  with  them. 

Nothing  (he  said)  which  I  have  ever  written  pleases  me  so  ill. 
They  have  notliing  new,  nothing  that  to  me  is  not  old.  The  style 
of  them  requires  to  be  low-pitched,  as  like  talk  as  possible.  The 
whole  business  seems  to  me  wearisome  triviality,  yet  toilsome  to 
produce,  which  I  would  like  to  throw  into  the  fire.;  some  ten  days 
more  will  get  me  to  the  end  of  it.  Ah  me  !  I  sometimes  feel  as  if 
I  had  lost  the  art  of  writing  altogether  ;  as  if  I  were  a  dumb  man, 
whose  thought  could  not  so  much  as  utter  itself  on  paper  now,  not 
to  speak  of  utterance  by  action.  I  do  lead  a  most  self-secluded, 
entirely  lonesome  existence.  '  How  is  Each  so  lonely  in  the  wide 
grave  of  the  All  ? '  says  Richter.  Jane  comes  here  to  take  me  out 
to  walk.     Adieu. 

The  hope  had  clung  to  him  of  being  still  able  to  go  to 
Scotland  in  the  early  autumn.  John  Carlyle  was  there  at 
this  time — an  additional  attraction.  His  ])lan  had  been 
*  to  take  shipping,  to  find  again  there  was  an  everlasting 
fresh  sea  water,  I'ivers,  mountains,  simple  peaceful  men ; 
that  God's  universe  was  not  an  accursed,  dusty,  deafening 


168  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

distraction  of  a  cockneydom.'  But  the  weatlier  broke  up 
early  tliis  season,  and  lie  found  that  he  must  stay  where 
he  was. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  September  11,  1840. 

On  Monday  last  I  was  on  the  point  of  setting  out,  detained  only 
by  some  washings  of  apparel  and  the  like  for  a  day  or  two.  At 
that  time  my  favourite  speculation  was  through  Liverpool  towards 
Ardrossan,  from  which  point  I  might  accomplish  a  variety  of  travel 
— see  my  good  mother  beyond  and  before  all.  But  the  weatlier 
grew  rainy,  cold  ;  I  myself  was  bilious,  heartless,  and  forlorn.  I 
summed  up  all  the  smashing  and  exasperation  a  poor  sleepless 
creature  might  count  on^in  short  days,  long  frosty  nights.  After 
sad  silent  meditation  and  computation,  I  have  come  to  the  result 
that  actually  here  is  the  place  wherein  prudence  bids  me  continue. 
The  heat  is  quite  out  of  the  weather.  I  have  books  here  :  soli- 
tude here.  My  one  sole  palliation  or  remedy  is  sitting  still ; 
which,  why  should  I  not  do  here  first  of  all  ?  It  gives  me  a  right 
sore  heart,  but  so  I  decide.  I  can't  get  out.  I  have  taken  to  the  read- 
ing of  things  needful,  to  solitary  walks,'  avoiding  the  pestiferous 
wen  where  my  life  is  gaoled  for  these  years.  I  take  mostly  to  the 
lanes  and  fields,  such  as  they  are,  *  grieving  by  the  shore  of  the 
mother  of  dead  dogs.'  So  stands  it  with  me.  I  lament,  above  all, 
about  my  dear  mother ;  but  that  also  I  must  bear.  When  I  go  to 
her,  she  is  old  and  weak ;  I  am  sick,  sleepless,  driven  half  mad. 
It  is  better  that  I  stay  here  and  have  beautiful  sorrow  rather  than 
Ugly.  I  had  a  letter  from  her  own  good  hand  this  morning.  I 
could  have  wept  over  it ;  but  there  was  no  good  in  that. 

In  return  for  all  these  disappointments,  I  calculate  all  the  more 
intensely  that,  if  God  spare  me  alive,  I  will  spend  the  whole  of 
next  summer  in  the  country,  I — though  I  should  even  go  to  live 
at  Puttock  again  for  that  purpose.  I  will  stay  in  the  peaceable 
country  till  I  really  want  to  come  back  to  this,  at  present,  abhor- 
red tumult.  I  calculate  that  I  shall  be  writing  another  book  then, 
that  it  will  be  much  easier  to  write  anywhere  than  here.  I  am 
bound  to  save  all  the  money  I  can,  to  efi'ect  this  object.  You 
would  laugh,  not  perhaps  with  much  mirth,  if  you  knew  all  the 
schemes  I  turn  over  in  my  head  for  attaining  this  unattainable 
blessing.     All  country  in  this  neighbourhood  is  nigh  unbearable 

^  Citoyenne  had  been  given  np  after  the  Sussex  ride  as  too  great  an  expense. 


Town  and  Com  dry,  169 

to  me,  defaced  \di\\  green  paint,  cockney  ism,  dust  and  din,  an 
abominable  aping  of  countiy.  I  want  to  be  far  off,  solitary,  by 
the  shore  of  the  sea.  I  must  have  a  cheap  country,  too.  I  should 
wish  to  be  within  a  day's  joui-uey  of  my  mother.  I  have  thought 
of  the  Northumberland  coast ;  I  have  thought  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 
We  shall  think  yet  more  about  it ;  but  if  in  silence,  all  the  better. 
Meanwhile,  thank  God !  I  have  again  some  notions  towards 
writing  a  book — let  us  see  what  comes  of  that.  It  is  the  one  use 
of  livinfj,  for  me.  Enough  to-day,  dear  Jack ;  write  to  me  what 
you  are  about,  and  continue  loving  me.         Yours  ever, 

T.  Carltle. 

The  book  that  was  to  be  written  was  '  Ci'omwell.' 

I  have  got  lately,  not  till  veiy  lately  (he  tells  Mr.  Erskine),  to 
fancy  that  I  see  in  Cromwell  one  of  the  greatest  tragic  souls  we 
have  ever  had  in  this  kindred  of  ours.  The  matter  is  Past ;  but  it 
is  among  the  great  things  of  the  Past,  which,  seen  or  unseen, 
never  fade  away  out  of  the  Present. 

Such  an  image  he  desired  to  draw,  and  to  do  it  properly 
he  had  begun  to  wisli  passionately  to  have  done  with 
London,  and  live  somewhere  by  the  sea. 

My  heai*t  (he  said)  sometimes  stmggles  with  a  kind  of  convulsive 
eagerness  towards  that  great  presence.  All  artmdate  speech  seems 
but  a  mockery  of  what  one  means.  The  everlasting  Ocean  voice, 
prophesying  of  Eteniity,  coming  hither  from  Eternity,  one  thinks 
even  better  for  one. 

He  would  have  gone,  and  London  would  have  known 
him  no  more,  except  for  Mrs.  Carlyle,  who  knew  that  he 
would  be  restless  anywhere.  He  himself  partly  felt  that 
she  might  be  right.  ^  Sick  children,'  he  admitted,  *  who 
long  now  for  this,  now  for  that,  are  not  well  off  anywhere. 
The  thing  they  so  want,  I  suppose,  is  to  get  to  sleep  well 
on  their  mother's  bosom.' 

Money,  at  any  rate,  was  to  be  saved  for  the  next  sum- 
mer's migration  ;  yet  the  anxiety  to  save  it  did  not  prevent 
Carlyle  from  calculating  how  much  the  abandoned  visit  to 
Scotland  would  have  cost,  and  sending  part  of  it  to  his 
mother  to  buy  winter  clothing. 


170  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

It  would  all  have  been  spent  (lie  said)  before  I  could  have  got 
up  to  you  by  the  cheapest  way  ;  and  now  I  fancy  you  all  winter, 
well  wrapt  up  on  the  produce  of  that.  I  know  you  do  not  need  it — 
thank  Heaven  you  do  not !— but  from  me  it  will  have  a  particular 
gusto,  nevertheless.  Get  yourself  over  above,  dear  mother,  some- 
thing you  wished  to  get — a  little  keg  of  beer  ;  a  little  this,  a  little 
that.  Stir  yourself  about  more  at  ease  than  you  would  have  done. 
It  will  be  my  greatest  luxuiy. 

Thus,  when  the  winter  set  in,  Carlyle  was  still  at  liome, 
deep  in  Commonwealth  tracts  and  history.  It  was  stiff 
work  ;  lie  did  not  find  lie  could  make  great  progress  in 
this  new  enterprise.  '  His  interest  in  it  even  threatened 
sometimes  to  decline  and  die.'  He  found  it  '  not  a  tenth 
part  such  a  subject  as  the  "  French  Revolution,"  nor  could 
the  art  of  man  ever  make  such  a  book  out  of  it.' 

We  must  hold  on  (he  said).  One  dreadful  circumstance  is  that 
the  books,  without  exception,  the  documents,  &c.,  one  has  to  read, 
are  of  a  dulness  to  threaten  locked  jaw.  I  never  read  such  jum- 
bling, drowsy,  endless  stupidities.  Seventhly  and  lastly !  Yet  I 
say  to  myself,  a  great  man  does  lie  buried  under  this  waste 
continent  of  cinders,  and  a  great  action.  Canst  thou  not  unbury 
them,  present  them  visible,  and  so  help,  as  it  were,  in  the  creation 
of  them? 

Again ; — 

November  16,  1840. — My  reading  goes  on  :  my  stupidity  seems 
to  increase  with  it  more  and  more.  I  get  to  see  that  no  history  in 
the  strict  sense  can  be  made  of  that  unspeakable  puddle  of  a  time, 
all  covered  up  with  things  entirely  obsolete  to  us — a  Golgotha  of 
dead  dogs.  But  some  kind  of  a  book  can  be  made.  That  we  are 
still  looking  to. 

And  again : — 

November  26. — My  reading  progresses  with  or  without  fixed 
hope.  I  struggled  through  the  '  Eikon  Basilike  '  yesterday ;  one 
of  the  paltriest  pieces  of  vapid,  shovel-hatted,  clear-starched,  im- 
maculate falsity  and  cant  I  have  ever  read.  It  is  to  me  an  amaze- 
ment how  any  mortal  could  ever  have  taken  that  for  a  genuine 
book  of  King  Charles's.     Nothing  but  a  surpliced  Pharisee,  sitting 


Lectures  on  Heroes,  171 

at  his  eflse  afar  off,  could  have  got  up  such  a  set  of  meditations. 
It  got  Parson  Gauden  a  bishopric.  It  remains  as  an  offence  to  all 
genuine  men — a  small  minority  still — for  some  time  yet.  The 
writing  of  that  book,  if  I  ever  write  it,  will  be  considerably  the 
hardest  feat  I  have  attempted  hitherto.  Last  night,  greatly  against 
wont,  I  went  out  to  dine  with  Rogers,  Milman,  Babbage,  Pick- 
wick, Lyell  the  geologist,  &c.,  with  sundry  indifferent-favoured 
women.  A  dull  evening,  not  worth  awakening  for  at  four  in  the 
morning,  with  the  dance  of  all  the  devils  round  you.  Babbage 
continues  eminently  unpleasant  to  me,  with  his  frog  mouth  and 
viper  eyes,  with  his  hide-bound,  wooden  irony,  and  the  aciidest 
egotism  looking  through  it.  Rogers  is  still  brisk,  courteous, 
kindly  affectionate — a  good  old  man,  pathetic  to  look  uj)on.  On 
Sunday  I  walked  three  hours  out  Harrow-ward  through  the  fields. 
A  great  deal  of  solitude  I  find  indispensable  for  my  health  of 
mind.  The  genemlity  of  men  have  no  sincerity  in  their  speech, 
no  sense  or  profit  in  it.  You  are  better  listening  to  the  inarticu- 
late winds,  regulating  if  possible  the  dog-kennel  of  your  own 
heart. 

Finally,  Carlyle  thiis  winds  up  the  year  1840  : — 

Jouiinal. 

December  26. — World  all  lying  bound  in  frost,  sheeted  in  snow 
and  rain.  Venomous  cold.  Jane  better  than  usual  this  winter. 
Yesterday  a  long  walk  with  Mill,  otherwise  entirely  lonely.  The 
stillest  Christmas  a  man  could  spend.  Evening  passed  in  reading 
Whitelocke.  I  did  not  go  to  Scotland  or  any  whither  in  autumn. 
My  lectures,  written  out  since  the  end  of  August,  lie  here  still  un- 
published. Saunders  &  Ottley  offer  me  50/.  for  an  edition  of  750. 
Munificent !  Fraser,  consulted  by  my  wife,  did  not  definitely  offer 
any  cash  at  all,  I  think.  For  a  famous  man,  my  bookseller's 
economics  seem  singular  enough.  Yet  what  of  economics?  I 
happily  do  not  need  cash  at  present.  If  cash  were  my  object  in 
writing,  I  had  made  the  lamentablest  business  of  it.  For  these  lec- 
tures I  wanted  an  inward  monition  to  publish.  Outward  there 
was  none  but  a  50/. — rather  weakish.  And  yet  some  inward  moni- 
tion, difficult  to  distinguish  clearly  from  a  mere  prurient  love  of 
feeling  myself  busy,  of  hearing  myself  talk  {cavendum),  does  begin 
to  manifest  itself  at  times.  Perhaps  we  shall  print  after  all  before 
long.    Not  of  much  importance  either  way.    Reviews  by  Whig, 


172  CarlyWs  Life  in  London, 

Tory,  by  '  Deux  Mondes ' — plenty  of  reviewing.  What  is  far  bet- 
ter, I  begin  to  get  alive  again !  So  much  vitality  recovered  that  I 
feel  once  more  how  miserable  it  is  to  be  idle.  After  all  I  have 
seen  and  undergone  here,  flatteries,  prospects,  etc.,  I  feel  that  the 
one  felicity  of  my  existence  is  that  of  working  at  my  tirade,  working 
with  or  without  reward.  All  life  otherwise  were  a  failure  to  me, 
a  horrid  incoherence  in  which  there  was  no  meaning  or  result.  To 
work  then  !  I  often  long  to  be  in  the  country  again  ;  at  Puttock 
again,  that  I  might  work  and  nothing  else  but  work.  Had  not  my 
wife  opposed,  I  should  probably  have  returned  thither  before  now. 
Unlucky  or  lucky?  One  never  knows.  In  sick  seasons  this 
practical  question,  hitherto  insoluble  for  doubt,  returns  always  on 
me  in  a  most  agitating,  uncomfortable  manner.  Know  thy  own 
mind  !  I  am  sure  to  be  sick  everywhere.  I  am  a  little  sicker  here, 
and  do  thoroughly  dislike  the  mud,  smoke,  dirt,  and  tumult  of  this 
place.  Wherein,  however,  is  decidedly  a  kind  of  possible,  an 
actual  association  with  my  fellow-creatures,  never  granted  else- 
where. Solitude  would  increase,  perhaps  twofold  or  more,  my 
power  of  working.  Shall  I  go,  carrying  and  dragging  all  along 
with  me  into  solitude  ?  Alas  !  it  is  a  dreary,  desolate  matter,  go  or 
stay.  My  one  hope  and  thought  for  most  part  is  that  very  shortly 
it  will  all  be  over,  my  very  sore  existence  ended  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Giver  of  it  —at  rest  somehow.  Things  might  be  written  here 
which  it  is  considerably  better  not  to  write.  As  I  live,  and  have 
long  lived,  death  and  Hades  differ  little  to  me  from  the  earth  and 
life.  The  human  figure  I  meet  is  wild,  wondrous,  ghastly  to  me, 
almost  as  if  it  were  a  spectre  and  I  a  spectre — Taisions. 

Oliver  Cromwell  will  not  prosper  with  me  at  all.  I  began  read- 
ing about  that  subject  some  four  months  ago.  I  learn  almost 
nothing  by  reading,  yet  cannot  as  yet  heartily  begin  to  write. 
Nothing  on  paper  yet.  I  know  not  where  to  begin.  I  have  not 
yet  got  through  the  veil,  got  into  genuine  sympathy  with  the 
thing.  It  is  ungainly  in  the  highest  degree ;  yet  I  am  loth  to  quit 
it.  In  our  whole  English  history  there  is  surely  nothing  as  great. 
If  one  can  delineate  anything  of  England,  then  this  thing.  Heaven 
guide  me !     Verily  one  has  need  of  Heaven's  guidance. 


CHAPTER  YIII. 

A.D.  1840—1.     iET.  45—46. 

Preparation  for  'Cromwell' — Nervous  irritability — A  jury  trial — 
Visit  to  Fryston — Summer  on  the  Solway — Beturn  to  London 
and  work — Difficulties  in  the  way — Offer  of  a  professorship — 
Declined. 

Mrs.  Carlyle,  writing  at  the  end  of  1840,  says  of  the 
state  of  things  in  Cheyne  Row :  '  Carlyle  is  reading  vora- 
ciously preparatory  to  writing  a  new  book:  For  the  rest 
he  growls  away  much  in  the  old  style.  But  one  gets  to 
feel  a  certain  indifference  to  his  growling  ;  if  one  did  not, 
it  would  be  the  worse  for  one.' 

lie  well  knew  his  infirmities,  and  wished  and  meant  to 
mend  them.  '  Think  not  hardly  of  me,  dear  Jeannie,'  he 
himself  wrote  to  her  a  few  months  later. 

In  the  mutual  misery  we  often  are  in,  we  do  not  know  how  dear 
we  are  to  one  another.  By  the  help  of  Heaven,  I  shall  get  a  little 
better,  and  somewhat  of  it  shall  abate.  Last  night,  at  dinner, 
Richard  Milnes  made  them  all  laugh  with  a  saying  of  yours. 
*  When  the  wife  has  influenza,  it  is  a  slighi  cold — when  the  man  has 
it,  it  is,  &c.  &c.* 

No  one  can  be  surprised  that  she  objected  to  being 
taken  back  to  the  '  desert.'  She,  though  she  enjoyed  Lon- 
don, would  have  cheerfully  gone  with  him,  would  herself 
have  urged  his  going,  back  to  the  moors,  if  he  could  have 
found  real  peace  there.  But  she  knew,  and  he  knew  too, 
that  he  could  not  fiy  from  his  shadow ;  that  tlie  cause  of 
his  restlessness  was  not  in  London,  but  iii  himself. 


174:  Cai'lyle^s  Life  in  London. 

How  often  (he  wrote  to  Sterling)  do  I,  poor  wretch,  from  amid 
this  inane  whirlpool  which  seems  to  be  grinding  my  life  to  pieces, 
cry  aloud  for  a  hut  in  the  wilderness,  with  fields  round  me  and 
sky  over  me,  that  on  any  terms,  consistent  with  life  at  all,  I  might 
be  allowed  to  live  there !  Nay,  perhaps,  /  shall  verily  fly  to  Craig- 
enputtock  again  before  long.  Yet  I  know  what  solitude  is,  and  im- 
prisonment among  black  cattle  and  peat  bogs.  The  truth  is,  we 
are  never  right  as  we  are.  '  Oh,  the  devil  burn  it ! '  said  the  Irish 
drummer  flogging  his  countryman ;  '  there's  no  pleasing  of  you, 
strike  where  one  will.' 

He  was  fond  of  this  storj  of  the  Irish  corporal  or  drum- 
mer, feeling  perhaps  how  well  it  fitted  him.  One  asks 
with  wonder  why  he  found  existence  (such  as  it  had  be- 
come to  him)  so  intolerable ;  why  he  seemed  to  suffer  so 
much  more  under  the  small  ills  of  life  than  when  he  had 
to  face  real  troubles  in  his  first  years  in  London.  He  was 
now  successful  far  beyond  his  hopes.  The  fashionable 
world  admired  and  flattered  him.  The  cleverest  men  had 
recognised  his  genius,  and  accepted  liim  as  their  equal  or 
superior.  He  was  listened  to  with  respect  by  all ;  and, 
far  more  valuable  to  him,  he  was  believed  in  by  a  fast-in- 
creasing circle  as  a  dear  and  honoured  teacher.  His  money 
anxieties  were  over.  If  his  liver  occasionally  troubled 
him,  livers  trouble  most  of  us  as  we  advance  in  life,  and 
liis  actual  constitution  was  a  great  deal  stronger  than  that 
of  ordinary  men.  As  to  outward  annoyances,  the  world 
is  so  made  that  there  will  be  such  things,  but  they  do  not 
destroy  the  peace  of  our  lives.  Foolish  people  intrude 
upon  us.  Official  people  force  us  to  do  many  things 
which  we  do  not  want  to  do,  from  sitting  on  juries  to 
payment  of  rates  and  taxes.  We  express  our  opinion  on 
such  nuisances  perhaps  with  imprecatory  emphasis,  but  we 
bear  them  and  forget  them.  Why  could  not  Carlyle,  with 
fame  and  honour  and  troops  of  friends,  and  the  gates  of  a 
great  career  flung  open  before  him,  and  a  great  intellect 
and  a  conscience  unharassed  by  a  single  act  which  he  need 


Nervous  Irritability,  176 

regret,  bear  and  forget  too  ?  Why,  indeed  I  The  only 
answer  is  that  Carlyle  was  Carlyle ;  and  a  man  to  whom 
the  figures  he  met  in  the  streets  looked  suddenly  like  spec- 
tres, who  felt  like  a  spectre  himself,  and  in  the  green 
flowery  earth,  with  the  sky  bending  over  it,  could  see 
*  Tartarus  and  the  gloomy  realms  of  Dis,'  was  not  to  bo 
expected  to  think  and  act  like  any  other  human  being. 

It  was  true  that,  if  occasion  required,  he  could  think 
and  act  like  a  very  shrewd  and  practical  human  being. 
He  has  already  alluded  wrathfully  to  the  being  summoned 
to  serve  on  juries,  lie  was  called  upon  again  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  year,  and  as  the  experience  was  a  curious 
one,  and  as  he  often  spoke  of  it,  I  give  the  letter  in  which 
he  tells  the  story. 

To  Margaret  Carli/le,  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea :  February  18,  1841. 
I  had  been  summoned  again  under  unheard-of  penalties  to  at- 
tend a  jury  trial  about  Patent  India-rubber  Cotton-cards.  Two 
people  from  Manchester  had  a  controversy  whose  was  the  inven- 
tion of  the  said  cards.  It  had  cost  them  perhaps  10,000/.,  this 
controversy  on  a  card  suit.  There  were  150  witnesses  summoned 
from  all  parts  of  England  and  Scotland.  It  had  been  left  unfin- 
ished last  term.  That  was  the  reason  of  the  unheard-of  penalties 
for  us  jurymen,  that  they  might  not  be  obliged  to  begin  at  the 
beginning  again.  The  same  twelve  men  did  all  assemble.  We 
sat  for  two  endless  days  till  dark  night  each  day.  About  eight 
o'clock  at  night  on  the  second  day  we  imagined  it  was  done,  and 
we  had  only  to  speak  our  verdict.  But,  lo  and  behold  !  one  of  the 
jury  stood  out.  We  were  eleven  for  the  plaintiff,  and  one  tlio 
other  way  who  would  not  yield.  The  judge  told  us  we  must  with- 
draw, through  passages  and  stairs  up  and  down  into  a  little  stone 
cell  with  twelve  old  chairs  in  it,  one  candle,  and  no  meat,  drink, 
or  fire.  Conceive  our  humour.  Not  a  particle  of  dinner,  nerves 
worn  out,  &c.  The  refractory  man — a  thickset,  flat-headed  sack — 
erected  himself  in  his  chair  and  said,  '  I  am  one  of  the  firme.st- 
minded  men  in  England.  I  know  this  room  pretty  well.  I  have 
starved  out  three  juries  here  already.'  Reasoning,  demonstration, 
was  of  no  avail  at  all.     They  began  to  suspect  he  had  been  bribed. 


176  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

He  looked  really  at  one  time  as  if  he  would  keep  us  till  half-past 
nine  in  the  morning,  and  then  get  us  dismissed,  the  whole  trial  to 
begin  again.  One  really  could  not  help  laughing,  though  one 
had  a  notion  to  kill  the  beast.  '  Do  not  argue  with  him,'  I  said. 
'  Flatter  him.  .  Don't  you  see  he  has  the  obstinacy  of  a  boar  and 
little  more  sense  in  that  head  of  his  than  in  a  Swedish  turnip  ?  ' 
It  was  a  head  all  cheeks,  jaw,  and  no  brow,  of  shape  somewhat 
like  a  great  ball  of  putty  dropped  from  a  height.  I  set  to  work 
upon  him  ;  '  we  all  set  to  work,  and  in  about  an  hour  after  our 
'  withdrawal '  the  Hash,  I  pulling  him  by  the  arm,  was  got  stirred 
from  his  chair — one  of  the  gladdest  moments  I  had  seen  for  a 
month — and  in  a  few  instants  more  we  were  all  rejoicing  on'  our 
road  home.  In  my  life  I  have  seen  nothing  more  absurd.  I  re- 
flected, however,  that  really  perhaps  I  had  contributed  to  get  jus- 
tice done  ;  that,  had  I  not  been  there,  it  was  very  possible  they 
would  have  quarrelled  with  their  '  firmest-minded  man  in  England,' 
and  cost  somebody  another  10,000/. 

Evidently  a  great  diplomatist  was  lost  in  Carlyle.  But 
it  would  have  been  liappy  for  the  peace  of  Cheyne  Row  if 
British  justice  could  have  done  without  him  ;  as  indeed 
for  tlie  future  it  contrived  to  do.  He  was  disturbed  no 
more  for  such  purposes. 

Fraser  came  to  terms  about  the  same  time  for  the  lec- 
tures on  '  Hero  Worship.'  They  w^ere  set  in  type,  and  he 
liked  them  a  great  deal  better  when  he  read  them  in  proof. 
*It  is,'  he  said,  'a  goustrous"^  determined  speaking  out  of 
the  truth  about  several  things.  The  people  will  be  no 
worse  for  it  at  present.  The  astonishment  of  many  of 
them  is  likely  to  be  considerable.' 

The  '  Miscellanies,'  '  Sartor,'  and  the  other  books  were 

*  As  Carlyle  told  the  story  to  me,  the  man  had  settled  himself  down  in  a 
dark  corner  of  the  room,  there  meaning  to  stay  out  the  night.  .  .  .  Carlyle 
sat  down  beside  him,  congratulated  him  on  being  a  man  of  decision,  able  to 
have  an  opinion  of  his  own  in  these  weak  days,  and  stand  by  it,  a  quality  both 
rare  and  precious  .  .  .  but,  &c.  In  fact,  did  he  not  see  that  by  standing  out 
he  would  hurt  his  own  friends  ?  .  .  .  The  jury  were  eleven  to  one.  .  .  . 
What  chance  was  there  that  any  future  jury  would  agree  to  the  verdict 
which  he  wished  ?     There  would  only  be  more  expense  with  no  result,  &c. 

^  Ooustrous — strong,  boisterous. 


Miss  Jewabunj,  177 

selling  well,  and  fresh  editions  were  wanted.  Young 
people  in  eai'nest  about  their  souls  had  begun  to  write  to 
him,  thanking  him  for  delivering  them  from  Egypt,  beg- 
ging to  be  allowed  to  come  to  Cheyne  Row  and  see  the 
face  and  hear  the  voice  of  one  who  had  done  such  great 
things  for  them.  Amongst  the  rest  came  Miss  Geraldine 
Jewsbury,  a  Manchester  lady,  afterwards  famous  as  a 
novelist,  and  the  closest  friend  of  Carlyle's  wife;  then 
fresh  to  life,  eager  to  use  it  nobly,  and  looking  passionately 
for  some  one  to  guide  her.  Carlyle's  first  impressions 
were  unusually  favourable. 

Miss  Jewsbury,  our  fair  pilgrimess  (he  writes  on  March  3,  1841), 
is  coming  again  to-morrow,  and  then  departs  for  the  North.  She 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  young  women  I  have  seen  for  years ; 
clear  delicate  sense  and  courage  looking  out  of  her  small,  sylph- 
like figui'e. 

The  next  impression  was  less  satisfactory,  though  the 
young  lady  was  still  found  interesting. 

Que  deviendra-telle  ?  (he' asks).  A  notable  young  woman,  victim 
of  much  thst  she  did  not  make  ;  seeking  passionately  for  some 
Paradise  to  be  gained  by  battle  ;  fancying  George  Sand  and  the 
*  literatui-e  of  desperation  '  can  help  her  thithei-ward.  In  the  world 
there  are  few  sadder,  sicklier  phenomena  for  me  than  George  Sand 
and  the  response  she  meets  with. 

For  Madame  Sand  and  all  her  works,  for  all  sentimental, 
indecent  literature  whatsoever,  Carlyle's  dislike  amounted 
to  loathing.  lie  calls  it  somewhere  *  a  new  Phallus  wor- 
ship, with  Sue,  Balzac,  and  Co.  for  prophets,  and  Madame 
Sand  for  a  virgin.'  Emerson,  who  admired  this  great 
French  celebrity,  complained  to  me  once  of  Carlyle's  want 
of  charity  about  her.  Emerson  had  been  insisting  to  him 
on  her  high  qualities,  and  could  get  for  answer  nothing 
except  that  she  was  a  great — improper  female.  Geraldine 
Jewsbury's  inclination  that  way  had  not  recommended  her, 
nor  did  her  own  early  novels,  '  Zoe,'  the  '  Half  Sisters,' 
Vol.  III.— 12 


1T8;  Carli/Ws  Life  in  Lo7idon. 

(fee,  tend  to  restore  her  to  favour.  But  she  worked  through 
all  this.  In  a  long  and  trying  intimacy  she  won  and  kept 
the  affectionate  confidence  of  the  Cheyne  Row  household, 
and  on  his  wife's  death  Geraldine  was  the  first  of  her 
friends  to  whom  he  turned  for  support. 

Meanwhile  Whitelocke  and  Rushworth  did  not  grow 
more  digestible.  The  proofs  of  '  Hero  Worship '  were 
finished.  The  want  of  rest  in  the  past  summer  had  upset 
Carlyle's  internal  system.  Work  he  could  not ;  and  at 
Easter  he  was  glad  to  accept  an  invitation  from  Milnes  to 
accompany  him  to  his  father's  house  at  Fryston,  in  York- 
shire. His  letters  give  a  graphic  and  attractive  picture  of 
the  Fryston  circle.  A  few  slight  extracts  will  be  suf- 
ficient here. 

Milnes,  whom  then  and  always  he  heartily  liked,  took 
him  down  by  railway  on  April  5.  The  present  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  in  the  carriage  with  them,  and  left  them 
at  Tarn  worth. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Royal  Hotel,  Derby  :  April  5,  1841. 
The  last  look  thy  face  wore  to-day  has  haunted  me  all  the  way 
hither.  I  will  write  half  a  word  before  going  to  bed,  though.in  a 
travellers'  room  with  two  bagmen  dining  and  conversing  on  one 
side  of  the  apartment,  and  Milnes  diligently  reading  a  tragedy  of 
Landor's  at  the  other  side  of  my  table.  Two  blazing  jets  of  gas 
flaming  away  right  overhead.  .  .  .  We  got  along  without  the 
slightest  accident  comfortably  enough.  Our  weather  was  of  the 
brightest.  I  sate  looking  out  at  the  green  spring  fields,  the  beau- 
tiful, honest-looking  callages  and  hamlets.  It  is  many  a  year  since 
I  had  seen  a  spring  day.  This  was  a  kind  of  sample  of  spring, 
rich  in  all  kinds  of  sad  and  tender  recollections  for  me.  Milnes 
and  I  got  on  beautifully.  He  read  *  Oxford  Tracts,'  &c.,  all  the 
way,  argued  and  talked  in  the  smartest  manner.  ...  I 
managed  to  smoke  three  cigars,  two  of  them  in  the  railway  in 
spite  of  regulations.  .  .  .  We  set  off  at  nine  in  the  morning  ; 
shall  arrive  about  one  or  two,  I  fancy.  I  will  write  from  Fryston  ; 
write  thou.     There  is  a  railway,  and  letters  fly  in  less  than  a  day. 


A    Visit  to  Fryston.  179 

Oh  Jeannie,  would  thou  wert  happier !  Would  I  could  make  thee 
happy  !  God  be  with  you,  my  dearest  I  Hope — let  us  still  hope, 
and  not  fear.  Good  sleep  to  you,  and  this  along  with  breakfast 
to-morrow.  Yours  ever  from  the  heart, 

T.  Gablyle. 

Fryston :  April  7. 

My  fate  at  Derby  was  none  of  the  brightest.  Bed  at  half-past 
one  o'clock,  to  make  sure  of  quiet,  then  awoke  again  by  the  stroke 
of  five !  However,  one  must  put  up  with  the  accidents  of  the 
road.  I  was  not  so  misemble  as  might  have  been  expected,  at 
least  not  till  late  last  night  when  I  had  got  worn  out.  Tliis  coun- 
try is  altogether  like  a  beautified  kind  of  Scotland  ;  streams  of 
water,  fields  alternating  of  green  and  red,  with  hawthorn  hedges, 
honest-looking  unclipt  trees  all  in  bud.  The  silent  sight  of  it 
yesterday  did  me  real  benefit.  To  finish  the  bulletin  part  of  the 
business,  I  awoke  this  morning  again  at  six  (woe's  me,  for  it  was 
after  one  before  I  lay  down);  but  gradually,  in  spite  of* noisy 
servants,  in  spite  of  all  things,  I  fell  first  into  a  sluggish  torpor, 
then  into  treacle-sleep,  and  so  lay  sound  as  a  stone  till  half-past 
ten.  My  hope  and  expectation  is  that  I  shall  improve  in  health 
here.  If  I  could  get  riding  out  among  these  silent  fields  and 
rough  country  lanes,  I  should  amend  fast. 

Richard  '  made  me  dismount  some  two  miles  of  our  appointefl 
goal,  and  walk  homewards  by  a  shorter  way  through  woods,  over 
knolls,  &c.  Walking  was  not  my  forte ;  however  I  jDersevered 
and  did  well  enough.  Over  rough-looking  places,  some  of  them, 
we  got  at  last  to  the  Fryston  mansion,  a  large  irregular  pile  of 
various  ages,  rising  up  among  ragged  old  woods  in  a  rough  large 
park,  also  all  sprinkled  with  trees,  grazed  by  sheep  and  horses,  a 
park  chiefly  beautiful  because  it  did  not  set  up  for  beauty. 
Ancient-looking  female  figures  were  visible  through  the  windows 
as  we  drew  nigh.  Mrs.  Milnes,  a  tall  ancient  woman,  apparently 
of  weak  health,  of  motherly  kind  heart,  of  old-fashioned,  stately 
politeness — a  prejx)ssessing  woman — welcomed  us  at  the  door  of 
the  drawing-room  *  in  the  silence  of  the  stately  hall.' 

I  am  lodged  in  a  bed-room  with  four  enormous  windows,  which 
look  out  over  woody  garden  spaces  and  other  silent  ruralities  ;  the 
apartment  furnished  as  for  Prince  Albert  and  Queen  Victory,  the 

>  Milnes. 


180  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

most  absurd  place  I  ever  lived  in  (when  I  look  at  myself  and  my 
equipment)  in  this  world.  I  am  charged  to  smoke  in  it  too.  .  .  . 
I  have  a  fire  in  it  all  day.  I  now  write  in  it  to  thee.  The  bed  seems 
to  be  about  8  feet  wide.  A  ladder  conducts  you  to  it  if  you  like. 
Of  my  paces  the  room  measures  15  from  end  to  end,  45  feet  long, 
height  and  width  proportioned,  with  ancient  dead-looking  portraits 
of  Queens,  Kings,  Straffords,  Principalities,  &c.,  really  the  uncom- 
fortablest  acme  of  luxurious  comfort  that  any  Diogenes  was  set 
into  in  these  late  years. 

Fryston  :  Monday,  April  12. 
Your  second  letter  came  as  before  at  breakfast.  I  gave  Eichard 
the  paragraph  relating  to  him  to  read  for  his  own  behoof.  Your 
Dispatch  objurgation  and  Chronicle  eulogy  ^  were  read,  parts  of  the 
former  aloud,  with  suitable  commentary  of  laughter,  to  the  com- 
pany at  large.     Lady ,  who  seems  to  have  some  sense  of 

laughter  as  of  other  things,  understood  the  Goody's  procedure. 

But  to  the  dear 's  I  could  perceive  it  was  matter  rather  of 

amazement.  'Does  Mrs.  Carlyle  send  you  this?'  'Ah,  yes,  the 
wicked  gypsy ;  she  is  glad  to  have  anything  like  it  to  send.'  Your 
Chronicle  puff  is  really  worth  something.  Can  you  find  out  who 
did  it  ?  If  it  be  not  Fuz  (John  Forster),  which  I  rather  disincline 
to  believe,  then  I  have  another  admirer  who  partly  understands 
what  I  would  be  at.  Your  mother's  approbation  is  also  very  agree- 
able to  mc,  and  my  own  mother's  greeting  (crying)  over  Knox  and 
Luther.  And  now  at  last  I  do  think  we  are  very  sufficiently  ap% 
plauded  and  approved,  and  ought,  if  possible,  to  go  and  do  some- 
thing deserving  a  little  applause. 

A  ride  to  Wakefield  with  Milnes  was  an  incident  of  this 
visit,  with  Milnes's  conversation  in  the  course  of  it. 

He  did  not  plague  me  with  the  picturesque,  the  good  Eichard. 
On  my  declaring  that  simple  knolls  and  fields  with  brooks  and 
hedges  among  them  were  the  best  of  all  for  me,  and  the  picturesque 
a  mere  bore,  he  admitted  that  partly,  at  bottom,  it  was  so  to  him 
also,  and  probably  to  all  men.  I  like  Eichard  better  and  better — 
a  most  good-humoured,  kind,  cheery-hearted  fellow,  with  plenty 
of  savoir-faire  in  him  too.  He  answered  me  the  other  day,  when  I 
asked  him  if  he  liked  Spenser's  '  Fairy  Queen,'  '  Is  it  as  a  public 
question  that  you  ask  me  or  as  a  private  confidential  one  ? '    No- 

1  Two  reviews  of- '  Hero  Worship.' 


Vidt  to  Fryston,  181 

body  could  answer  better.   At  Wakefield  we  saw  a  smoky  spinning 

town,  and  an  ancient  Socinian  lady  named .     We  galloped 

and  trotted,  I  smoking  cigars,  and  looking  out  on  the  quiet  of 
Mother  Earth,  improved  by  agriculture  ;  Bichard  talking  about 
Puseyism,  aristocratic  blackguards,  aristocratic  originals,  Crypto- 
Catholicism,  and  much  else.  We  came  across  the  park  at  full  gal- 
lop about  six  o'clock,  to  dine  with  the  Dragon  of  Wantley  as  we 
found. 

'The  Dragon  of  Wantley'  was  Lord  WharnclifFe,  who 
was  attending  quarter  sessions  at  Poiiifret ;  a  Tory  peer 
whom  Carlyle  found  '  an  innocent,  wooden,  limited,  very 
good  old  Dragon.'  The  James  Marshalls  dined  also  the 
same  evening  at  Fryston,  Mrs.  James  Marshall  being 
the  Miss  Spring  Rice  who  was  mentioned  above  as  an  at- 
tendant at  the  lectures.  They  lived  at  Headingly,  near 
Leeds,  and  pressed  Cai-lyle  to  pay  them  a  visit  when  he  left 
Fryston.  He  said  he  was  '  a  waiter  on  Providence,'  and 
could  not  say  what  he  could  do,  but  decided  eventually  to 
go.  The  Fryston  visit  lasted  a  fortnight.  'Alas!'  he 
says,  on  closing  his  account  of  it,  '  we  were  at  churcli  on 
Sunday.  Iloebuck  (much  tamer  than  before)  was  here 
with  lawyers.  This  way  leads  not  to  peace,  yet  I  actually 
slept  last  night  for  the  first  time  without  rising  to  smoke.' 

Life  in  great  English  country  houses  may  be  as  well 
spent  as  life  elsewhere  by  the  owners  of  them  who  have 
occupations  to  attend  to.  For  visitors,  when  large  num- 
bers are  brought  together,  some  practice  is  required  if 
they  are  to  enjoy  the  elaborate  idleness.  The  habits  of 
such  places  as  Fryston  and  Headingly,  to  which  he  went 
afterwards,  were  as  yet  a  new  experience  to  Carlyle. 
From  the  latter  place  he  reported  on  April  17th. 

To  Jane  Welsh  (Jarlyle. 

Headingly:  April  17,  1841. 
Richard  and  I  rolled  oflflfrom  the  doors  of  Fryston  Hall  in  a 
handsome  enough  manner  yesterday  about  eleven  o'clock.    We  left 
a  vacant  house  to  a  quietude  which  I  should  think  must  have  been 


182  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

welcome  to  it.  I  never  lived  before  in  such  an  element  of  *  much 
ado  about  almost  Nothing ;  '  life  occupied  altogether  in  getting  it- 
self lived  ;  troops  of  flunkeys  bustling  and  becking  at  all  times, 
the  meat-jack  creaking  and  playing  all  day,  and  I  think  all  night, 
for  I  used  to  hear  it  very  early  under  my  room  ;  and  such  cham- 
pagning,  claretting,  and  witty  conversationing.  Ach  Gott !  I 
would  sooner  be  a  ditcher  than  spend  all  my  days  so.  However, 
we  got  rather  tolerably  through  it  for  these  ten  days,  and  I  really 
think  I  can  report  a  favourable  change  in  my  inner  man  in  spite  of 
every  drawback.  I  have  not  yet  made  out  one  good  sleep.  This 
morning  I  had  a  fair  chance,  had  fallen  asleep  again,  and  was  afar 
in  sweet  oblivion,  apparently  for  hours,  when  the  visage  of  a 
flunkey  at  the  foot  of  my  bed  aroused  me.  *  What  o'clock  ? '  *  Af 
pas  seven,  Sir.''  *  When  is  breakfast  ? '  ^  Af  pas  eight.''  Flunkey 
of  the  Devil.  I  rose  as  slowly  as  I  possibly  could,  read  newspa- 
pers, &c.,  you  may  judge  with  what  felicity,  till  ten,  when 
breakfast  did  arrive.  No  wealth  should  in  any  case  induce  me  to 
be  concerned  with  retinues  of  flunkeys.  And  yet,  poor  fellows ! 
even  this  flunkey  of  the  Devil  is  a  very  assiduous,  helpful  creat- 
ure. I  will  tell  him  not  to  call  me  to-mon-ow  at  all,  and  so  for- 
give him. 

Here  at  Headingly  the  house  is  quieter.  The  people  have  al- 
most all  sense — two  altogether  important  elements.  Besides  we 
dine  at  six.  Nay,  we  have  a  smoking  room.  The  youngest  broth- 
er Arthur  has  cigars  and  pipes.  I  could  be  better  nowhere  than 
here.  I  have  shirked  the  church.  I  pleaded  *  conscience.'  I  do 
really  begin  to  have  scruples  ;  that  is  a  truth.  '  Nothing  can  ex- 
ceed the  kindness  of  these  people,' '  and  they  are  really  good  people. 

I  was  much  entertained  with  the  new  mill  yesterday,  with  the 
thousands  of  men,  lasses  and  boys  and  girls,  all  busy  there.  It 
is  not  nothing,  but  something,  we  here  live  amidst.  At  six  o'clock 
here  a  general  muster  of  the  Sj)ring  Rices  and  Marshalls,  Mrs. 
Henry  Taylor  among  them,  awaited  us  to  dinner,  and  we  had  a 
reasonable  enough  evening,  one  of  the  best  I  have  yet  had.  Beau- 
tiful room  where  I  now  sit  writing,  with  Leeds  lying  safe  in  the 
hollow  of  the  green  knolls  ;  its  steeple-chimneys  all  dead  to-day 
(Sunday),  its  very  house-smoke  cleared  away  by  the  brisk  wind 
which  is  rattling  in  all  windows,  growling  mystically  through  all 
the  trees.  Nothing  that  art,  aided  by  wealth,  good  sense,  and 
honest  kindness,  can  do  for  me  is  wanting. 

1  Phrase  of  Edward  Irving. 


Cottage  on  the  Sohoay.  183 

Two  pleasant  days  were  spent  with  the  Marshalls,  and 
then  Carlyle  pursued  his  way.  He  had  nothing  definite 
to  do.  He  was  taking  holiday  with  set  purpose,  and  being 
so  far  north  he  went  on  by  Liverpool,  and  by  steamer 
thence  to  Dumfriesshire.  His  mother  had  been  slightly 
ailing,  and  he  was  glad  to  be  with  her  till  she  recovered. 
But  he  was  among  his  own  people,  no  longer  under  re- 
straint as  among  strangers,  and  he  grew  restless  and  '  atra- 
bilious.' *  The  stillness  of  this  region,'  he  wrote  when 
at  Scotsbrig,  '  would  be  a  kind  of  heaven  for  me,  could  I 
get  it  enjoyed  ;  but  I  have  no  home  here.  I  am  growing 
weary  of  the  perfect  idleness.  Like  the  Everlasting  Jew, 
I  must  wetter^  welter^  weiter^  Accordingly  in  May  he 
was  in  Cheyne  Row  again,  but  in  no  very  improved  con- 
dition. '  I  am  sick,'  he  said,  '  w4th  a  sickness  more  than  of 
body,  a  sickness  of  mind  and  my  own  shame.  I  ought  to 
know  what  I  am  going  to  work  at — all  lies  there.  Despi- 
cable mortal !  know  thy  own  mind.  Go  then  and  do  it  in 
silence.'  He  could  not  do  it ;  he  could  not  work,  he  could 
not  rest.  There  was  no  help  for  it ;  he  had  to  do  what  in 
the  past  year  he  knew  he  must  do,  allow  himself  a  season 
of  complete  rest  and  sea  air.  The  weather  grew  hot,  and 
London  intolerable.  He  went  back  to  Scotsbrig,  and  took 
a  cottage  at  Kewby  close  to  Annan,  on  the  Solway,  for  the 
summer.  Mrs.  Carlyle  came  down  with  a  maid  who  was 
to  act  as  cook  for  them.  They  were  to  take  possession  at 
the  end  of  July.  Mrs.  Carlyle  stayed  a  day  or  two  on  the 
way  with  her  newly  acquired  friends,  the  Paulets,  at  Sea- 
forth  near  Liverpool,  where  a  letter  reached  her  from  her 
husband. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle^  Liverpool. 

Scotsbrig:  July  1S41. 
Much  good  may  Liverpool  do  you,  or  rather  have  done  you,  for 
it  will  be  the  last  day  when  you  get  this.     Had  I  known  the 
Paulet  was  8o  su[)erior  a  chai'acter,  I  ought  certainly  to  have  gone 


184  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

and  looked  at  her.  ...  I  should  on  the  whole  like  best  of  all 
to  see  poor  Geraldine,  an  ardent  spark  of  life  struggling  and  striv- 
ing one  knows  not  whitherward,  too  well.  May  the  bounteous 
heavens  be  good  to  her,  poor  Geraldine  !  I  wish  she  could  once 
get  it  fairly  into  her  head  that  neither  woman  nor  man,  nor  any 
kind  of  creature  in  this  universe,  was  born  for  the  exclusive,  or 
even  for  the  chief,  purpose  of  falling  in  love,  or  being  fallen  in 
love  with.  Good  heavens  !  It  is  one  of  the  purposes  most  living 
creatures  are  produced  for ;  but,  except  the  zoophytes  and  coral 
insects  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  I  am  acquainted  with  no  creature 
with  whom  it  is  the  one  or  grand  object.  That  object  altogether 
missed,  thwarted,  and  seized  by  the  Devil,  there  remains  for 
man,  for  woman,  and  all  creatures  (except  the  zoophytes),  a  very 
great  number  of  other  objects  over  which  we  will  still  show  fight 
against  the  Devil.  Ah  me  !  These  are  sorry  times,  these  of  ours, 
for  a  young  woman  of  genius.  My  friend  Herr (word  illegi- 
ble), whom  I  am  reading  here,  greatly  prefers  the  old  deep  Norse 
Paganism,  with  its  stalwart  energy  and  self-help,  with  its  stoicism, 
rugged  nobleness,  and  depth  as  of  very  death,  to  any  Christianism 
now  going.  Recommend  me  to  Geraldine,  at  any  rate,  as  one 
who  loves  her,  and  will  lament  sore  if  she  gain  not  the  victory, 
if  she  find  not  by-and-by  some  doctrine  better  than  George- 
Sandism,  inclusive  of  George-Sandism  and  suppressive  of  that. 
Enough  now.  Not  a  word  in  the  shape  of  news  can  stand  here. 
I  live  in  a  silence  unequalled  for  many  years.  I  grow  daily  better, 
and  am  really  very  considerably  recovered  now.  My  i^opularity  is 
suffering  somewhat  by  the  absolute  refusal  to  see  any  body  what- 
ever.    I  let  it  suffer. 

Adieu,  dear  little  creature  !  sail  prosperously.  Be  not  too  sick. 
Come  jumping  up  when  I  step  upon  the  deck  at  Annan  Pool.  Kiss 
Geraldine.     I  command  no  more. 

Yours  ever  and  aye, 

T.  Caelyle. 

Something  was  not  altogether  right  with  Carl jle  -when 
he  wrote  this  letter.  The  tone  of  it  is  uncomfortable. 
He  was  a  wayward  creature.  He  met  his  wife  as  he 
promised,  drove  her  over  to  her  mother's  at  Templand,  and 
intended  to  stay  there  with  her.  On  the  first  night  of  his 
arrival  he  rose  at  three  o'clock  in  the  dawning  of  the  July 


A  Night  at  Temjpland,  185 

morning,  went  to  the  stable,  put  liis  horse  into  the  gig 
himself,  and  drove  over  to  Dumfries  to  finish  his  night's 
rest  there.  In  the  forenoon  he  sent  back  this  account  of 
himself : — 

Dumfries  :  July  22,  1*41. 
I  got  away  hither  much  better  than  you  ixjrliaps  anticipated.  I 
liavo  managed  to  get  some  houi*s  of  sleep,  and  am  taking  the  road 
(to  Annan)  not  at  all  in  desperate  circumstances.  Would  to  Heaven 
X^could  hear  that  my  poor  Jeannie  had  got  to  sleep !  I  have  done 
little  but  think  tragically  enough  about  my  poor  lassie  all  day : 
about  her,  and  aU  the  histoiy  we  have  had  together.  Alas!  but  let 
us  not  take  the  tragic  side  of  it.  All  tragedy  has  a  moral  and  a 
blessing  in  it  withal.  It  was  the  beautifullest  sunrise  when  I  left 
Templand.  Herons  were  fishing  in  the  Nith  ;  few  other  creatures 
yet  abroad.  I  could  not  make  the  cock  hold  his  tongue  on  the 
roost.  I  am  afraid  he  still  kejit  thee  awake.  Alas !  the  poor  Dame 
has  too  probably  lain  all  day  with  a  headache.  Write  to  me — 
write  to  me.  Explain  all  my  suddenness  to  your  mother,  to  our 
kind  friends.  Express  all  my  regret  to  them,  all  my,  &c.  Adieu, 
my  hapless,  beloved  Jeannie !  Sleep  and  be  well,  and  let  us  meet 
not  tragically.  Adieu, 

T.  CARLYIiE. 

He  had  made  so  little  secret  of  his  dislike  of  London, 
and  his  wish  to  leave  it,  that  when  he  was  so  much  absent 
this  season  a  report  went  abroad  that  he  had  finally  gone, 
and  Sterling  had  written  to  him  to  inquire.  He  told  his 
friend,  in  answer,  that  for  the  present  he  had  merely  taken 
a  cottage  for  the  summer ;  for  the  rest '  he  had  no  fixed 
intentions,  only  rebellious  impulses,  blind  longings  and 
velleities.'  '  1  do  not  think,'  he  said,  '  that  I  shall  leave 
London  for  a  while ;  yet  I  might  readily  go  farther  and 
fare  worse.  Indeed,  in  no  other  corner  of  the  earth  have 
I  ever  been  able  to  get  any  kind  of  reasonable  solid  exist- 
ence at  all.  Everywhere  else,  I  have  been  a  kind  of 
exceptional,  anomalous,  anonymous  product  of  nature,  pro- 
voked and  provoking  in  a  very  foolish,  unprofitable  way.' 

The  Newby  lodgings  were  arranged,  and  he  and  his  wife 


186  Carlyle's  Hfe  in  London. 

were  settled  in  them.  Rest  was  the  object,  the  most  desir- 
able and  the  least  attainable.  His  correspondence  describes 
his  life  there. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Newby  :  July  28,  1841. 
This  same  furnished  cottage  is  a  considerable  curiosity  of  a 
place,  of  the  tiniest  dimensions,  as  if  space  here  on  the  beach  had 
been  not  less  precious  than  in  the  heart  of  London;  but  it  is 
pajDered,  dry,  &c.,  &c.;  by  her  contrivances  Jane  is  making  it  all 
very  habitable.  Ah-eady  this  morning  at  nine  I  had  a  bathe.  The 
tide  is  not  ten  yards  off.  Alick,  Mary,  &c.,  are  overwhelming  with 
attentions ;  one  sends  wine,  the  other  cream  and  butter,  &c.  It  is  the 
loneliest  place  surely  I  could  have  found  anywhere  in  the  world, 
this,  at  present.  Sky  and  sea,  with  little  change  either  of  sound 
or  color,  such  is  our  whole  environment.  Very  strange,  very  sad, 
yet  very  soothing  is  this  multitudinous  everlasting  moan  of  the 
Frith  of  the  Selgovse,  vexed  by  its  winds,  swinging  in  here  and 
again  out  like  a  huge  pendulum  hung  upon  the  moon — ever — ever 
— as  in  the  days  of  Pliny,  and  far  earlier.  Eternity  is  long,  is 
great ;  and  life  with  all  its  grievances  and  other  '  trash-trash '  is 
very  short  and  small. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Newby :  August  4. 

Here  now  for  a  matter  of  ten  days.  Our  house  is  a  small  dandi- 
fied fantasticality  of  a  cottage,  almost  close  upon  the  gravel  of  the 
beach.  A  footpath,  on  coarse  dunes,  with  gorse,  broom,  hairy 
imitation  of  grass,  passes  east  and  west  before  our  windows.  Be- 
hind us  is  an  oatfield,  now  in  ear,  and  fishers'  huts  and  cabins. 
Eight  in  front  from  this  garret-window  lies  all  Cumberland  ;  lies 
Skiddaw,  Helvellyn,  and  a  thousand  wondrous  peaks  known  to  me 
from  infancy,  at  the  present  moment  all  blue  and  shining  in  the 
August  sun,  oftenest  sunk  in  grey  tempest,  always  worth  a  look 
from  me. 

The  place  is  very  strange,  most  lonely.  For  three  days  after  our 
arrival  we  had  no  phenomenon  at  all  but  the  everlasting  roar  of 
the  loud  winds,  and  the  going  and  coming  of  the  great  Atlantic 
brine,  which  makes  up  and  down  once  every  twelve  hours  since 
the  creation  of  the  world,  never  forgetting  its  work  ;  a  most  huge 
unfortunate-looking  thing,  doomed  to  a  course  of  transcendent 
monotony,  the  very  image  as  of  a  grey  objectless  eternity. 


Cottage  on  the  Solway,  187 

I  bathe  daily,  ride  often,  drive  my  wife  or  my  mother,  who  is 
with  us  in  these  days,  to  and  fro  in  frail  vehicles  of  the  gig  species. 
It  is  a  savage  existence  for  most  part,  not  unlike  that  of  gipsies. 
For  example,  our  groom  is  a  great  thick-sided,  laughing-faced, 
red-haired — waimin.  She  comes  to  me  from  time  to  time  with  news 
of  inextricable  imbroglios  in  the  harness,  the  head-stalls,  and  hay- 
rack. If  I  could  not  myself  perform,  the  whole  equine  establish- 
ment would  come  to  a  standstill.  But  none  knows  me,  none  ven- 
tures to  know  me.  I  roam  far  and  wide  in  the  character  of  ghost 
(a  true  revenant).  Such  gipsy dom  I  often  liken  to  the  mud  bath 
your  sick  rhinoceros  seeks  out  for  himself,  therein  to  lie  soaking 
for  a  season,  with  infinite  profit  to  the  beast's  health,  they  say. 

I  love  Emerson's  book,'  not  for  its  detached  opinions,  not  even 
for  the  scheme  of  the  general  world  he  has  framed  for  himself,  or 
any  eminence  of  talent  he  has  expressed  that  with,  but  simply  be- 
cause it  is  his  own  book ;  because  there  is  a  tone  of  veracity,  an 
unmistakable  air  of  its  being  hUi  (wheresoever  he  may  have  found, 
discovered,  borrowed,  or  begged  it),  and  a  real  utterance  of  a  hu- 
man soul,  not  a  mere  echo  of  such.  I  consider  it,  in  that  sense, 
highly  remarkable,  rare,  very  rare,  in  these  days  of  ours.  Ach  Gott! 
It  is  frightful  to  live  among  echoes.  The  few  that  read  the  book, 
I  imagine,  will  get  benefit  of  it.  To  America,  I  sometimes  say 
that  Emei*son,  such  as  he  is,  seems  to  me  like  a  kind  of  New  Era. 
Really,  in  any  counti-y,  all  sunk  crown  deep  in  cant,  twaddle,  and 
hollow  traditionality,  is  not  the  first  man  that  will  begin  to  speak 
the  truth — any  truth — a  new  and  newest  era  ? 

There  is  no  likeness  of  the  face  of  Emerson  that  I  know  of.  Poor 
fellow !  It  lies  among  his  liabilities  to  be  engraved  yet,  to  become 
a  Sect  founder,  and  go  partially  to  the  devil  in  scvei-al  ways ;  all 
which  may  the  kind  heavens  forbid  !  Wliat  you  ask  about  viy  like- 
ness is  unanswerable.  I  likened  it,  four  months  ago,  when  I 
struck  work  in  sitting,  to  a  comjiound  of  the  head  of  a  demon  and 
of  a  flayed  horse.     Infaiulum^  infandum  ! 

Carlyle  had  sat  to  several  persons.  I  cannot  say  to 
which  of  several  performances  tins  singular  description 
refers.  For  some  reason,  no  artist  ever  succeeded  with  a 
portrait  of  him. 


>  The  first  series  of  Buwuon^s  Essays  just  pabUshed  in  England,  with  a 
preface  by  Cadyle. 


188  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

To  John  Garlyle. 

Newby  :  August  15,  1841. 
It  is  all  like  a  kind  of  vision  of  Hades,  this  country  to  me, 
especially  when  it  sinks  all  grey  like  a  formless  blot,  future  and 
past  alike  nothing  or  an  unintelligible  something.  The  truth  is, 
I  myself  in  these  weeks  make  no  debate  whatever  against  the  great 
exterior  Not  I.  There  is  nothing  but  passivity,  idleness,  and  Bal- 
zac literature  in  me.  Perhaps  it  is  good  so.  I  shall  get  to  work- 
ing, to  asserting  myself  by-and-by.  Never  have  I  been  idler  since 
I  can  remember.  If  my  health  do  not  improve  a  little,  it  is  very 
hard.  I  see  nobody,  will  let  nobody  see  me.  '  It  is  not  to  be  a 
Lion,'  Jane  says,  '  but  to  be  a  Tiger.' 

To  the  Same. 

August  20. 
Our  time,  which  is  about  done  here,  has  gone  along  as  well  as 
was  needful  in  a  kind  of  vagabond  style,  the  fruits  of  which  I  ex- 
pect afterwards.  I  have  lived,  as  it  were,  entirely  alone,  in  com- 
pany with  the  Titantic  elements,  spirits  of  the  waters,  earth,  wind, 
and  mud — by  no  means  the  worst  company.  Last  night  after  dusk 
I  walked  as  far  as  Gallowbank  Pool,  in  a  grey  wild  wind,  in  per- 
fect solitude  except  for  sleeping  cows,  except  three  fishers  too, 
whose  rude  Annan  voices  I  heard  busy  in  their  sicows  in  the  Gral- 
lowbank  Pool  when  I  arrived.  No  walk  in  the  world  could  be  more 
impressive  to  me.  I  looked  into  the  Lady  Well  in  i)assing  home 
again.  Annan  street  had  groups  of  'prentice  lads  on  it,  and  maid- 
servants in  white  aprons.  Tom  Willison's  shop  light  was  shining 
far  up  the  street,  but  Tom  himself,  I  suppose,  is  laid  long  since  in 
the  everlasting  night,  or  the  everlasting  day.  Near  ten  o'clock  I 
was  here  again. 

Readers  of  '  Redgauntlet '  will  know  the  scenery  of  that 
evening  walk.  Whether  as  a  rhinoceros  in  his  mud  bath, 
or  as  an  unquiet  revenant,  in  either  case  he  was  determined 
to  have  notliing  to  say  to  his  fellow-creatures.  There  he 
was,  in  the  very  centre  of  his  oldest  acquaintances.  Kot 
a  place  or  a  name  or  a  person  but  was  familiar  to  him  from 
his  boyhood.  At  Annan  he  had  been  at  school.  At  the 
same  school  lie  had  been  an  usher.  Annan  was  Irving's 
home,  and  Irving's  relations  were  all  round  him.     Yet  he 


Miss  Martinecm,  189 

visited  no  one,  he  recognised  no  one,  he  allowed  no  one  to 
speak  to  him,  and  he  wandered  in  the  dusk  like  a  restless 
spirit  amidst  the  scenes  of  his  early  dreams  and  his  early 
suflFerings.  The  month  at  Kewby  over,  he  stayed  another 
week  at  Scotsbrig  with  his  mother,  went  for  a  few  days  to 
the  Speddings  in  Cumberland,  thence  with  his  wife,  be- 
fore going  back  to  London,  to  see  Miss  Martineau  at  Tyne- 
nionth.  At  last,  in  the  end  of  September,  he  was  at  home 
again,  the  long  holiday  over,  to  which  he  had  looked  for- 
ward so  eagerly,  and  he  threw  down  into  his  note-book 
the  impression  which  it  had  left. 

Jouimal. 

October  3,  1841. — Returned  nearly  three  weeks  ago  after  a  long 
sojourn  in  Annandale,  «fec.,  a  life  of  transcendent  Do-Nothingism, 
not  Fee/-Notliingism,  an  entirely  eclipsed,  almost  as  if  enchanted, 
life.  Jane  was  with  us.  Helen,  the  servant,  too,  had  been  with 
us  at  Newby.  The  adventure  was  full  of  confused  pain,  partly 
degrading,  disgraceful ;  cost  me  in  all,  seemingly,  some  70/.  We 
shall  not  all  go  back  to  Annandale  for  rustication  in  a  hurry.  My 
poor  old  mother  !  What  unutterable  thoughts  are  there  for  me  ! 
How  the  light  of  her  little  upper  room  used  to  shine  for  me  in 
dark  nights  when  I  was  coming  home  !  The  thought  of  her  !  Ah 
me  !  There  is  yet  no  thought  of  all  I  feel  in  regard  to  that.  .  ,  . 
Harriet  Martineau  lies  this  long  while  confined  to  a  sofa,  writing, 
wilting,  full  of  spirits,  vivacity,  didacticism  ;  could  still  give  illus- 
tration and  direction  to  the  whole  world,  tell  every  mortal  that 
would  listen  to  her  what  would  make  his  life  all  right— a  praise- 
worthy, notable  character.  Nevertheless,  I  was  pained  by  much 
that  I  saw.  The  proper  Unitarian  species  of  this  our  England  at 
present  is  very  curious. 

I  lazily,  and  alas !  also  sullenly,  at  times  refused  to  see  simply 
any  person  in  Annandale  except  my  own  kindred.  I  do  fear  I  gave 
offence  to  right  and  left,  but  really  could  not  well  help  it.  Much 
French  rubbish  of  novels  read,  a  German  book  on  Norse  and  Cel- 
tic Paganism,  little  otlier  than  trash  either.  Nothing  read,  Noth- 
ing thought.  Nothing  done.     Shame  ! 

Ought  I  to  write  now  of  Oliver  Cromwell  ?  Gott  ireiss  .•  I  can- 
not yet  see  clearly.     I  have  been  scrawling  somewhat  dnring  the 


190  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

past  week,  but  entirely  without  effect.  Go  on,  go  on.  Do  I  not 
see  so  much  clearly  ?  Why  complain  of  wanting  light  ?  It  is  cour- 
age, energy,  perseverance,  that  I  want.  How  many  things  of  mine 
have  already  passed  into  public  action?  I  can  see  them  with 
small  exultation  ;  really  almost  witl*  a  kind  of  sorrow.  So  little 
light !  How  enormous  is  the  darkness  that  renders  it  noticeable  ! 
Last  week  a  manufacturer  at  Leeds  compared  our  Corn-law  nobles 
to  the  French  in  1789  ;  curious  to  tne.  It  is  a  strange  incoherency 
this  position  of  mine,  of  the  like  of  me— among  the  meanest  of 
men  and  yet  withal  among  the  high  and  highest.  But  what  is 
life,  except  the  knitting  up  of  incoherences  into  coherence  ?  Cour- 
age !  What  a  need  of  some  speaker  to  the  practical  world  at 
present !  They  would  hear  me  if,  alas  !  I  had  anything  to  say. 
Again  and  again  of  late  I  ask  myself  in  whispers.  Is  it  the  duty  of 
a  citizen  to  be  silent,  to  paint  mere  Heroisms,  Cromwells,  &c.  ? 
There  is  a  mass  as  of  chaotic  rubbish  continents  lying  on  me, 
crushing  me  into  silence.  Forward  !  Struggle !  '  Live  to  make 
others  happy  ! '  Yes,  surely  at  all  times,  so  far  as  you  can.  But 
at  bottom  that  is  not  the  aim  of  any  life.  At  bottom  it  is-  mere 
hypocrisy  to  call  it  such,  as  is  continually  done  now-a-days.  Every 
life  strives  towards  a  goal,  and  ever  should  and  must  so  strive. 
What  you  have  to  do  with  others  is  not  to  tread  on  their  toes  as 
you  run — this  ever  and  always — and  to  help  such  of  them  out  of 
the  gutter — this  of  course,  too — as  your  means  will  suffice  you. 
But  avoid  Cant.  Do  not  think  that  your  life  means  a  mere  search- 
ing in  gutters  for  fallen  figures  to  wipe  and  set  up.  Ten  thousand 
and  odd  to  one  it  does  not  mean  and  should  not  mean  that.  In 
our  life  there  is  really  no  meaning  at  all  that  one  can  lay  hold  of, 
no  result  at  all  to  sum  up,  except  the  woi^k  we  have  done.  Is 
there  any  other  ?    1  see  it  not  at  present. 

Ye  voices  of  the  I3ast !  Oh,  ye  cut  my  heart  asunder  with  your 
mournful  music  out  of  discord  ;  your  prophetic  prose  grown  poetry. 
Ay  de  mi !  But  what  can  I  do  with  you  ?  This  day  I  actually 
ought  to  try  if  I  could  get  to  work.     Let  us  try. 

October  4. — Alas  !  I  did  try,  and  without  results.  Da  JiaV  ich 
keinen  Tag.  My  thoughts  lie  around  me  all  inarticulate,  sour, 
fermenting,  bottomless,  like  a  hideous,  enormous  bog  of  Allan — a 
thing  ugly,  painful,  of  use  to  no  one.  We  must  force  and  tear  and 
dig  some  kind  of  m^ain  ditch  through  it.  All  would  be  well  then  : 
growth,  fertility,  greenness,  and  running  water — a  business  that 
will  not  do  itself,  that  must  be  done.     Oh,  what  a  lazy  lump  I  am ! 


7%<3  Present  Time,  191 

This  extract  explains  the  difficulty  Carlyle  had  in  be- 
ginning *  Cromwell.'  lie  felt  that  he  had  something  to 
say,  something  which  he  ought  to  say  about  the  present 
time  to  the  present  age ;  something  of  infinite  Importance 
to  it.  England  as  he  saw  it  was  saturated  with  cant, 
dosed  to  sui-feit  with  doctrines  half  true  only  or  not  true 
at  all,  doctrines  religious,  doctrines  moral,  doctrines  politi- 
cal, till  the  once  noble  and  at  heart  still  noble  English 
character  was  losing  its  truth,  its  simplicity,  its  energy,  its 
integrity.  Between  England  as  it  was  and  England  as  it 
might  yet  rouse  itself  to  be,  and  as  it  once  had  been,  there 
was  to  Carlyle  visible  an  infinite  difference.  Jeffrey  had 
told  him  that,  though  things  were  not  as  they  sliould  be, 
they  were  better  than  they  had  ever  been  before.  This, 
in  Carlyle's  opinion,  was  one  of  those  commonly  received 
falsehoods  which  were  working  like  poison  in  the  blood. 
England  could  never  have  grown  to  be  what  it  was  if  there 
had  been  no  more  sincerity  in  Englishmen,  no  more  hold 
on  fact  and  truth,  than  he  perceived  in  his  own  contem- 
poraries. The  '  progi'ess '  so  loudly  talked  of  was  progress 
downwards,  and  rapid  and  easy  because  it  was  downwards. 
There  was  not  a  statesman  who  could  do  honestly  what  he 
thought  to  be  right  and  keep  his  office ;  not  a  member  of 
Parliament  who  could  vote  by  his  conscience  and  keep  his 
seat ;  not  a  clergyman  who  could  hope  for  promotion  if 
he  spoke  what  he  really  believed ;  hardly  anyone  of  any 
kind  in  any  occupation  who  could  earn  a  living  if  he  only 
tried  to  do  his  woi-k  as  well  as  it  could  be  done  ;  and  the 
result  of  it  all  was  that  the  very  souls  of  men  were  being 
poisoned  with  universal  mendacity.  '  Chartism  '  had  been 
a  partial  relief,  but  the  very  attention  which  it  had  met 
with  was  an  invitation  to  say  more,  and  he  had  an  inward 
impulse  which  was  forcing  him  on  to  say  it.  How  ?  was  the 
((uestion.  The  '  Westminster  Review  '  had  collapsed,  lie 
thought  for  a  time  that  he  might  have  some  Review  of 


192  'Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

liis  own  where  he  could  teacli  what  he  called  '  believinor 
Radicalism,'  in  opposition  to  Political  Economy  and  Par- 
liamentary Radicalism.  Of  this  he  could  make  nothing. 
He  could  not  find  men  enough  with  sufficient  stuff  in  them 
to  work  with  him.  Thus  all  this  autumn  he  was  hanging 
restless,  unable  to  settle  his  mind  on  '  Cromwell ; '  un- , 
able  to  decide  in  what  other  direction  to  turn ;  and  there 
is  nothing  of  his  left  written  during  these  months  of  much 
interest  save  one  letter  about  Goethe.  Sterling,  who  had 
been  a  persistent  heretic  on  that  subject,  refusing  to  recog- 
nise Goethe's  sovereign  excellence,  had  been  studying 
'  Meister '  at  Carlyle's  instance,  was  still  dissatisfied,  and 
had  frankly  said  so.     Carlyle  answers. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chekea:  October  31,  1841. 
I  agree  in  nearly  evei-v  word  yon  say  about  '  Meister,'  and  call 
your  delineation  just  and  vivid,  both  of  that  book  and  its  author, 
as  they  impress  one  there.  Truly,  as  you  say,  moreover,  one  might 
ask  the  question  whether  anybody  ever  did  love  this  man  as  friend 
does  friend ;  especially  whether  this  man  did  ever  frankly  love 
anybody.  I  think  in  one  sense  it  is  very  likely  the  answers  were 
No  to  both  questions,  and  yet  in  another  sense  how  emphatically 
Yes.  Few  had  a  right  to  love  this  man,  except  in  the  very  way 
you  mention ;  Schiller,  perhaps,  to  something  like  that  extent. 
One  does  not  love  the  heavens'  lightning  in  the  way  of  caresses  al- 
together. This  man's  love,  I  take  it,  lay  deep  hidden  in  him  as 
fire  in  the  earth's  centre.  At  the  surface,  since  he  could  not  be 
a  Napoleon,  and  did  not  like  to  be  a  broken,  self- consumed  Bums, 
what  could  it  do  for  him  ?  The  earliest  instincts  of  self-culture,  I 
suppose,  and  all  the  wider  insights  he  got  in  the  course  of  that, 
would  alike  prescribe  for  him  :  '  Hide  all  this  ;  renounce  all  this ; 
all  this  leads  to  madness,  indignity,  Kousseauism,  and  will  for  ever 
remain  bemocked,  ignominiously  crucified  one  way  or  another  in 
this  lower  earth.  Let  thy  love  far  hidden  spring  up  as  a  soul  of 
beauty  and  be  itself  victoriously  beautiful.'  Let  summer  heat 
make  a  whole  world  verdant,  and  if  Sterling  ask  next  century, 
'  But  where  is  your  thunderbolt  then  ?  '  Sterling  will  take  another 
view  of  it. 


Offer  of  a  Professorship.  193 

An  interesting  incident,  though  it  led  to  nothing, 
lightened  the  close  of  this  year.  In  tlie  old  days  at 
Comely  Bank  and  Craigenputtock,  Carlyle  had  desired 
nothing  so  much  as  professorship  at  one  or  other  of  the 
Scotch  universities.  The  door  had  been  shut  in  his  face, 
sometimes  contemptuously.  He  was  now  famous,  and  the 
young  Edinburgh  students,  having  looked  into  his  lectures 
on  Heroes,  began  to  think  that,  whatever  might  be  the 
opinions  of  the  authorities  and  patrons,  they  for  their 
part  would  consider  lectures  such  as  those  a  good  exchange 
for  what  was  provided  for  them.  A  '  History  chair '  was 
about  to  be  established.  A  party  of  them,  represented  by 
a  Mr.  Duniface,  presented  a  requisition  to  the  Faculty  of 
Advocates  to  appoint  Carlyle.  The  'Scotsman'  backed 
them  up,  and  Mr.  Duniface  wrote  to  him  to  ask  if  he 
would  consent  to  be  nominated.  Seven  years  before,  such 
an  offer  would  have  had  a  warm  welcome  from  him. 
Now  he  was  gratified  to  find  himself  so  respected  by  the 
students.     But  then  was  then,  and'now  was  now. 

The  cliair  (he  said  of  it)  has  no  endowment  at  all.  To  go  among 
Scotch  Presbyteiians,  Scotch  pedantries,  Klein-Stadteries,  without 
any  advantage  but  a  lecture-room,  and  their  countenance  and  co- 
partnery, would  never  for  a  moment  do.  Cannot  I  make  for  my- 
self a  university  at  any  time  in  any  quarter  of  the  Saxon  world  by 
simply  hiring  a  lecture-room  and  beginning  to  speak  ?  Yet  the 
movement  of  these  young  lads  is  beautiful,  is  pathetic  to  me  :  a 
young  generation  calling  me  affectionately  home,  and  I  already 
across  the  irremeabilis  unda.  *  The  wished  for  comes  too  late.' 
Tant  mieuLx,  now  and  then. 

This  or  something  like  this  will  I  send — I  must  take  care  the 
dogs  do  not  print  it  in  their  newspapers  : — 

To  Mr.  Dura/ace  and  his  fellow-requisUionists. 

Mj  dear  Sir,  — Accept  my  kind  thanks,  you  and  all  your  asso- 
ciates, for  your  zeal  to  serve  me.  This  invitation  of  yours,  coming 
on  me  unexpectedly  from  scenes  once  so  familiar,  now  so  remote 
and  stmnge,  like  the  voice  of  a  new  generation  now  risen  up  there, 
is  almost  an  affecting  thing.  I  can  in  some  true  sense  take  it  as 
Vol.  III.— 13 


194  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

a  voice  from  the  young  ingenuous  minds  of  Scotland  at  large,  call- 
ing to  me  in  these  confused  deep  struggling  times,  *  Come  thou, 
and  teach  us  what  is  good.'  If  I  did  not  hope  still  in  other  ways 
to  do  what  is  in  me  towards  teaching  you  and  others,  I  should  be 
doubly  sorry  that  my  answer  must  be  negative.  Ten  years  ago 
such  an  invitation  might  perhaps  have  been  decisive  of  much  for 
me,  but  it  is  too  late  now ;  too  late  for  many  reasons,  which  I  need 
not  trouble  you  with  at  present. 

I  will  solicit  a  continuance  of  your  regards  ;  I  will  bid  you  all 
be  scholars  and  fellow-labourers  of  mine  in  things  true  and  manly ; 
that  so  we  may  still  work  in  real  concert  at  a  distance  and  scat- 
tered asunder,  since  together  it  is  not  possible  for  us.  "With  sin- 
cerest  wishes,  yours,  T.  Caklyle. 

Such  a  letter,  brief,  pregnant,  and  graceful,  must  have 
increased  the  regret  among  the  students  that  they  could 
not  have  the  writer  of  it  among  them.  Could  not — for 
that  was  the  word.  At  the  universities  of  England  and 
Scotland,  as  thej  were  then  constituted,  a  man  of  genius 
bent  on  speaking  truth  and  nothing  else  could  have  no 
place.  Is  it  otherwise  now  ?  The  emoluments  of  the 
chair  would  have  been  ample,  for  the  students  would  have 
crowded  into  the  class,  and  the  professors'  incomes  depend 
almost  wholly  on  the  lecture  fees.  Happily  finance  was 
no  longer  an  anxiety  to  Carlyle. 

Money  (he  notes)  does  not  weigh  excessively  much  with  me  now 
that  I  have  wherewithal  to  go  on  unbated  by  the  hellhound  idea 
of  beggary.  I  begin  to  see  now  that  it  is  not  on  the  money  side 
that  we  shall  be  wrecked,  but  on  some  other.  Jbeo  gratias  I  for 
it  was  an  ugly  discipline  that. 


I 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A.D.  1842.    MT.  47. 

Sterling  at  Falmouth — My  own  acquaintance  with  him — *  Strafford  * 
— Carlyle's  opinion — Death  of  Mrs.  Welsh — Carlyle  for  two 
months  at  Templand — Plans  for  the  future — Thoughts  of  re- 
turning to  Craigenputtock — Sale  of  Mrs.  Welsh's  property — 
Letters  from  Lockhart — Life  in  Annandale — Visit  to  Dr.  Ar- 
nold at  Rugby — Naseby  field. 

Sterling  was  spending  the  winter  of  1841-2  at  Falmouth. 
Ilis  chest  was  weak.  He  had  tried  the  West  Indies,  he 
had  tried  Madeira,  he  had  tried  the  south  of  France,  with 
no  permanent  benefit.  He  was  now  trying  whether  the 
mild  air  of  tlie  south  of  Cornwall  might  not  .answer  at 
least  as  well,  and  spare  him  another  banishment  abroad. 
It  was  here  and  at  this  time  that  I  became  myself  ac- 
quainted with  Sterling.  I  did  not  see  him  often,  but  in 
the  occasional  interviews  which  I  had  with  him  he  said 
some  things  which  I  could  never  forget,  and  which  affected 
all  my  subsequent  life.  Among  the  rest,  he  taught  me  to 
know  what  Carlyle  was.  I  had  read  the  '  French  Kevolu- 
tion,'  had  wondered  at  it  like  my  contemporaries,  but  had 
not  known  what  to  make  of  it.  Sterling  made  me  under- 
stand that  it  was  written  by  the  greatest  of  living  thinkers, 
if  by  the  side  of  Carlyle  any  other  person  deserved  to  be 
called  a  thinker  at  all.  He  showed  me,  I  remember,  some 
of  Carlyle's  letters  to  him,  which  have  curiously  come  back 
into  my  hands  after  more  than  forty  years.  Looking  over 
these  letters  now,  I  find  at  the  beginning  of  this  year 


196  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London. 

some  interesting  remarks  about  Emerson,  with  whom  also 
Sterling  had  fallen  into  some  kind  of  correspondence. 
Besides  his  own  Essays,  Emerson  had  sent  over  copies  of 
the  'Dial,'  the  organ  then  of  intellectual  Liberal  Xew  Eng- 
land. Carlyle  had  not  liked  the  'Dial,'  which  he  thought 
high-flown,  often  even  absurd.  Yet  it  had  something 
about  it,  too,  which  struck  him  as  uncommon. 

It  is  to  me  (he  said)  the  most  wearisome  of  readable  reading ; 
shrill,  incoi*poreal,  spiritlike  ;  I  do  not  say  ghastly,  for  that  is  the 
character  of  your  Puseyism,  Shelleyism,  &c.,  real  ghosts  of  extinct 
Laudisms,  Eobespierreisms,  to  me  extremely  hideous  at  all  times. 
This  New  England  business  I  rather  liken  to  an  w?iborn  soul  that 
has  yet  got  no  body.     Not  a  pleasant  neighbour  either. 

But  the  chief  substance  of  these  letters  is  about  Ster- 
ling's own  work.  He  had  just  written  '  Straffoi-d,'  and 
had  sent  the  manuscript  to  be  read  at  Cheyne  Bow. 
Carlyle,  when  asked  for  his  opinion,  gave  it  faithfully. 
He  never  flattered.  He  said  honestly  and  completely 
what  he  really  thought.  His  verdict  on  Sterling's  tragedy 
was  not  and  could  not  be  favourable.  He  could  find  no 
true  image  of  Strafford  there,  or  of  Strafford's  surround- 
ings. He  had  been  himself  studying  for  two  years  the 
antecedents  of  the  Civil  War.  He  had  first  thought  Mon- 
trose to  have  been  the  greatest  man  on  Charles's  side. 
He  had  found  that  it  was  not  Montrose,  it  was  Went- 
worth ;  but  Wentworth,  as  he  conceived  him,  was  not  in 
Sterling's  play.  Even  the  form  did  not  please  him,  though 
on  this  he  confessed  himself  an  inadequate  judge.  His 
remarks  on  art  are  characteristic : — 

Of  Dramatic  Art,  though  I  have  eagerly  listened  to  a  Goethe 
speaking  of  it,  and  to  several  hundreds  of  others  mumbling  and 
trying  to  speak  of  it,  I  find  that  I,  practically  speaking,  know  yet 
almost  as  good  as  nothing.  Indeed,  of  Art  generally  {Kunst,  so 
called)  I  can  almost  know  nothing.  My  first  and  last  secret  of 
Kunst  is  to  get  a  thorough  intelligence  of  the/«c^  to  be  painted, 
represented,  or,  in  whatever  way,  set  forth — the /ac^  deep  as  Hades, 


Sterling's  '  Straff m^d:  197 

high  as  heaven,  and  written  so,  as  to  the  visnal  face  of  it  on  onr 
l)oor  earth.  This  once  blazing  within  me,  if  it  will  ever  get  to 
blaze,  luul  bursting  to  be  out,  one  has  to  take  the  whole  dexterity 
of  adaptation  one  is  master  of,  and  with  tremendous  straggling, 
really  frightful  struggling,  contrive  to  exhibit  it,  one  way  or  the 
other. 

Tliis  is  not  Art,  I  know  well.  It  is  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  not 
the  Master  of  Woolwich,  building  a  ship.  Yet  at  bottom  is  there 
any  Woolwich  builder  for  such  kinds  of  craft  ?  What  Kunst  had 
Homer  ?  What  Kunst  had  Shakespeare  ?  Patient,  docile,  valiant 
intelligence,  conscious  and  imconscious,  gathered  from  all  winds, 
of  these  two  things — their  otnti  faculty  of  utterance,  and  the  audi- 
ence they  had  to  utter  to,  rude  theatre,  Ithacan  Farm  Hall,  or 
whatever  it  was— add  only  to  which  as  the  soul  of  the  whole,  the 
above-said  blazing,  radiant  insight  into  the  fact,  blazing,  burning 
interest  about  it,  and  we  have  the  whole  Art  of  Shakespeare  and 
Homer. 

To  speak  of  Goethe,  how  the  like  of  him  is  related  to  these  two, 
would  lead  me  a  long  way.  But  of  Goethe,  too,  and  of  all  speak- 
ing men,  I  will  say  the  soul  of  all  worth  in  them,  without  which 
none  else  is  possible,  and  x^dth  which  much  is  certain,  is  still  that 
same  radiant,  all-irradiating  insight,  that  same  burning  interest, 
and  the  glorious,  melodious,  ijerenuial  veracity  that  results  from 
these  two. 

This  extract  is  interesting  less  for  its  bearing  upon 
Sterling's  play,  which  brilliant  separate  passages  could  not 
save  from  failure,  than  for  the  full  light  which  it  throws 
on  Carlyle's  own  method  of  working.  But  from  his  own 
work  and  from  Sterling's  and  all  concerns  of  his  own  lie 
was  called  away  at  this  moment  by  a  blow  which  fell  upon 
his  wife,  a  blow  so  severe  that  it  had  but  one  alleviation. 
It  showed  her  the  intensity  of  the  affection  with  which 
she  was  regarded  by  her  husband,  ller  mother,  Mrs. 
Welsh,  had  now  resided  alone  for  several  years  at  her  old 
home  at  Templand  in  Nithsdale,  where  the  Carlyles  had 
been  married.  Her  father,  Walter  Welsh,  and  the  two 
aunts  had  gone  one  after  the  other.  Except  for  tlie  occa- 
sional visits  to  Cheyue  Kow,  Mrs.  Welsh  had  lived  on 


198  CaidyWs  Life  in  London. 

there  by  herself  in  easy  circumstances,  for  she  had  the 
rent  of  Craigenputtock  as- well  as  her  own  jointure,  and, 
to  all  natural  expectation,  w^ith  many  years  of  life  still  be- 
fore her.  The  mother  and  daughter  were  passionately 
attached,  yet  on  the  daughter's  part  perhaps  the  passion 
lay  in  an  intense  sense  of  duty ;  for  their  habits  did  not 
suit,  and  their  characters  were  strongly  contrasted.  Mrs. 
Welsh  was  enthusiastic,  sentimental,  Byronic.  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle  was  fiery  and  generous,  but  with  a  keen  sarcastic  im- 
derstanding;  Mrs.  Welsh  was  accustomed  to  rule;  Mrs. 
Carlyle  declined  to  be  ruled  wdien  her  judgment  was  un- 
convinced ;  and  thus,  as  will  have  been  seen,  in  spite  of 
their  mutual  affection,  they  were  seldom  much  together 
without  a  collision.  Carlyle's  caution — '  Hadere  nicht  niit 
deiner  Ilutter,  Liehste.  Trage^  trage!'^ — tells  its  own 
story.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  as  well  as  her  husband,  was  not  an 
easy  person  to  live  wdth.  She  had  a  terrible  habit  of 
speaking  out  the  exact  truth,  cut  as  clear  as  with  a  graving 
tool,  on  occasions,  too,  when  without  harm  it  might  have 
been  left  unspoken. 

Mrs.  Welsh  had  been  as  well  as  usual.  There  had  been 
nothing  in  her  condition  to  suggest  alarm  since  the  sum- 
mer w^ien  the  Carlyles  had  been  in  Annandale.  On  Feb- 
ruary 23  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  wTitten  her  a  letter,  little 
dreaming  that  it  was  to  be  the  last  which  she  was  ever  to 
write  to  her,  describing  in  her  usual  keen  style  the  state 
of  things  in  Cheyne  Row. 

To  Mrs.  Welsh,  Templand. 

5  Cheyne  Row  :  Feb.  23,  1842. 
I  am  continiiiug  to  mend.  If  I  could  only  get  a  good  sleep,  I 
should  be  quite  recovered ;  but,  alas !  we  are  gone  to  the  devil 
again  in  the  sleeping  department.  That  dreadful  woman  next 
door,  instead  of  putting  away  the  cock  which  we  so  pathetically 
appealed  against,  has  produced  another.  The  servant  has  ceased 
to  take  charge  of  them.     They  are  stuffed  with  ever  so  many  hens 


Death  of  Mrs.  WdsL  199 

into  a  small  hencoop  every  night,  and  left  out  of  doors  the  night 
long.  Of  course  they  are  not  comfortable,  and  of  course  they 
crow  and  screech  not  only  from  daylight,  but  from  midnight,  and 
so  near  that  it  goes  through  one's  head  every  time  like  a  sword. 
The  night  before  last  they  woke  me  every  quarter  of  an  hour,  but 
I  slept  some  in  the  intervals  ;  for  they  had  not  succeeded  in  rous- 
ing Iiim  above.  But  last  night  they  had  him  up  at  three.  He 
went  to  bed  again,  and  got  some  sleep  after,  the  *  horrors '  not  re- 
commencing their  efforts  till  five  ;  but  I,  listening  every  minute 
for  a  new  screech  that  would  send  him  do^vn  a  second  time  and 
prepare  such  wretchedness  for  the  day,  could  sleep  no  more. 

Wliat  is  to  be  done  God  knows !  If  this  goes  on,  he  will  soon  be 
in  Bedlam  ;  and  I  too,  for  anything  I  see  to  the  contrary :  and 
how  to  hinder  it  from  going  on  ?  The  last  note  we  sent  the  cruel 
woman  would  not  open.  I  send  for  the  maid,  and  she  will  not 
come.  I  would  give  them  guineas  for  quiet,  but  they  prefer  tor- 
menting us.  In  the  law  there  is  no  resource  in  such  cases.  They 
may  keep  wild  beasts  in  their  back  yard  if  they  choose  to  do  so. 
Carlyle  swears  he  will  shoot  them,  and  orders  me  to  borrow  Maz- 
zini's  gun.  Shoot  them  with  all  my  heart  if  the  consequences 
were  merely  ha\dng  to  go  to  a  police  office  and  pay  the  damage. 
But  the  woman  would  only  be  irritated  thereby  into  getting  fifty 
instead  of  two.  If  there  is  to  be  any  shooting,  however,  I  will  do 
it  myself.  It  will  sound  better  my  shooting  them  on  princii^le  than 
his  doing  it  in  a  passion. 

This  despicable  nuisance  is  not  at  all  unlikely  to  drive  us  out 
of  the  house  after  all,  just  when  he  had  reconciled  himself  to  stay 
in  it.  How  one  is  vexed  with  little  things  in  this  life !  The 
great  evils  one  triumphs  over  bravely,  but  the  little  eat  away  one's 
heart. 

An  '  evil '  greater  tlian  she  had  yet  kiio\vn  since  her 
fatlier  was  taken  away  hung  over  Mrs.  Carlyle  while  she 
was  writing  this  letter.  Five  days  later  there  came  news 
from  Templand,  like  a  bolt  out  of  the  blue  sky,  that  Mrs. 
Welsh  had  been  struck  by  apoplexy  and  was  dangerously 
ill.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  utterly  unfit  for  travelling,  '  almost  out 
of  herself,'  flew  to  Euston  Square  and  caught  the  first  train 
to  Liverpool.  At  Liverpool,  at  her  uncle's  house,  she 
learnt  that  all  was  over,  and  that  she  would  never  see  her 


200  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

mother  more.  She  was  carried  to  bed  unconscious.  When 
she  recovered  her  senses  she  would  have  risen  and  gone 
on  ;  but  her  uncle  would  not  let  her  risk  her  own  life,  and 
to  have  proceeded  in  her  existing  condition  would  as  likely 
as  not  have  been  fatal  to  her.  Extreme,  intense  in 
everything,  she  could  only  think  of  her  own  shortcomings, 
of  how  her  mother  was  gone  now,  and  could  never  for- 
give her.  The  strongest  natures  suffer  worst  from  re- 
morse. Only  a  strong  nature,  perhaps,  can  know  what 
remorse  means.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  surrendered  her  fortune 
to  her  mother,  but  the  recollection  of  this  could  be  no 
comfort ;  she  would  have  hated  herself  if  such  a  thought 
had  occurred  to  her.  Carlyle  knew  what  she  would  be 
suffering.  The  fatal  news  had  been  sent  on  to  him  in 
London.  He  who  could  be  driven  into  frenzy  if  a  cock 
crew  near  him  at  midnight,  had  no  sorrow  to  spare  for 
himself  in  the  presence  of  real  calamity. 

To  Jane   Welsh  Carlyle^  Maryland  Street,  Liverpool. 

Chelsea:  March-],  1842. 
My  darling  !  my  poor  little  woman  !  Alas  !  what  can  I  say  to 
thee  ?  It  was  a  stern  welcome  from  thy  journey  this  news  that 
met  thee  at  Maryland  Street.  Oh,  my  poor  little  broken-hearted 
wife !  Our  good  mother,  then,  is  away  for  ever.  She  has  gone  to 
the  unknown  Great  God,  the  Maker  of  her  and  of  us.  We  shall 
never  see  her  more  with  these  eyes.  Weep,  my  darling,  for  it  is 
altogether  sad  and  stern,  the  consummation  of  sorrows,  the  great- 
est, as  I  hope,  that  awaits  thee  in  this  world.  I  join  my  tears 
with  thine ;  I  cry  from  the  bottom  of  my  dumb  heart  that  God 
would  be  good  to  thee,  and  soften  our  tears  into  blessed  tears. 
The  question  now,  however,  is  what  is  to  be  done.  I  almost  per- 
suade myself  your  cousins  would  get  you  advised  to  take  a  little 
repose  with  them — Eepose  ! — and  that  you  are  still  at  Liverpool 
and  will  expect  this  letter  there,  Tell  me  :  would  you  wish  me  to 
come  ?  to  attend  you  forward  ?  to  bring  you  back  home  ?  to  do  or 
to  attempt  anything  that  even  promises  to  aid  you  ?  Speak,  my 
poor  darling !  I  am  in  a  whirl  of  unutterable  thoughts.  I  can 
advise  nothing,  but  in  everything  I  will  be  ordered  by  your 
wishes.     Speak  them  out. 


Death  of  Mrs,  Welsh.  201 

I  wrote  to  Dr.  Russell '  last  night.  Alas  !  his  tidings  were  all 
too  sudden.  The  swiftest  mail  train  could  not  have  carried  us 
thither.  Even  at  Craigenputtock  it  might  have  befallen  so.  Per- 
haps this  night  there  will  be  some  letter  come  from  you.  No,  no ! 
I  remember  now  there  is  none  possible  till  to-morrow  morning. 
Oh,  that  you  had  but  stayed  with  me !  It  would  have  been 
something  to  weep  on  my  shoulder.  God  help  thee  to  bear  this 
sore  stroke,  my  poor  little  Jeannie  !  Adieu,  I  will  write  no  more 
at  present.  I  have,  of  course,  many  lettera  to  write.  God  be  with 
thee,  and  solace  thy  poor  heart,  my  own  dearest  I 

T.  Carltle. 

3  o'clock. 
I  have  kept  this  open  to  the  last  minute  in  hopes  some  clearness 
of  purpose  might  rise  on  me  from  amid  that  black  chaos  of 
thoughts.  It  seems  cruel  to  ask  thee  for  advice,  and  yet  thy 
wishes,  dearest,  shall  be  the  chief  element  of  guidance  for  me. 
As  yet,  in  the  mood  I  am  in,  all  whirls  and  tumbles;  but  this 
question  does  arise.  Ought  I  not,  by  all  laws  of  custom  and 
natuial  propriety,  to  be  there,  with  or  without  thee,  on  the  last 
sad,  solemn  occasion,  to  testify  my  reverence  for  one  who  will  be 
for  ever  sad,  dear,  and  venerable  to  me  ?  Think  thou  and  answer. 
I  will  have  all  in  readiness  at  any  rate,  so  that  I  may  be  able  to 
start  to-morrow  night,  or  say  on  Thursday  morning,  if  needful. 
Shall  I  ?    Adieu,  my  own  darling ! 

Mrs.  Carlyle  lay  ill  in  Liverpol,  unable  to  stir,  and  un- 
permitted to  write,  lie  himself  felt  that  he  must  go,  and 
he  went  without  waiting  to  hear  more.  As  it  was,  he 
was  too  late  for  the  funeral,  which  had  for  some  reason 
been  hurried  ;  but  his  brother  James,  witli  the  instinct  of 
good  feeling,  had  gone  of  liis  own  accord  from  Ecclefechan 
to  represent  him.  Carlyle  was  sole  executor,  and  there 
were  business  affairs  requii-ing  attention  which  might  de- 
tain him  several  weeks.  He  was  a  few  hours  with  his 
wife  at  Liverpool  on  his  way,  and  then  went  on,  taking 
his  wife's  cousin  Helen  with  him  to  assist  in  the  many 
arrangements    which    would    require   a   woman's   hand. 

'  The  physician  who  had  attended  Mrs.   Welsh,  and  husband  of  the  Mrs. 
RuMell  who  waa  afterwards  Mrs.  Carlyle's  oorrespondent. 


202  Carlyleh  Life  in  London. 

Everything  was,  of  course,  left  to  Mrs.  Carlyle,  and  her 
own  property  was  returned  to  her.  It  was  not  large, 
from  200Z.  to  300Z.  a  year ;  but,  with  such  habits  as  hers 
and  her  husband's,  it  w^as  independence,  and  even  wealth. 
But  this  was  the  last  recollection  which  occurred  to 
Carlyle.  He  travelled  down  on  the  box  of  the  mail  in 
a  half -dreamy  state,  seeing  familiar  faces  at  Annan  and 
Dumfries,  and  along  the  road,  but  taking  no  heed  of  them. 
Terapland,  when  he  reached  it,  was  a  haunted  place. 
There  he  had  been  married ;  there  he  had  often  spent  his 
holidays  when  he  could  come  down  from  Craigenputtock  ; 
there  he  had  conceived  '  Sartor ; '  there  two  years  before 
his  own  mother  and  he  had  smoked  their  pipes  together 
in  the  shrubbery.  It  was  from  Templand  that  he  had 
rushed  away  desperate  in  the  twilight  of  a  summer  morn- 
ing and  seen  the  herons  fishing  in  the  river  pools.  A 
thousand  memories  hung  about  the  place,  which  was  now 
standing  desolate.  Durins;  the  six  weeks  while  he  re- 
mained  there  he  wrote  daily  to  his  wife,  and  every  one  of 
these  letters  contained  something  tenderly  beautiful.  A 
few  extracts,  however,  are  all  that  I  can  allow  myself. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Templand  :  March  7, 1842. 

All  this  house  is  like  a  ghost  to  me,  but  still  clear  and  pure  like 
a  kind  of  blessed  spirit.  The  old  feathers  and  grass  stick  in  the 
bottle  on  the  mantelpiece.  There  are  two  pennies  with  bits  of  wax 
on  them.  Helen  thinks  they  are  memorials  of  John  Grey  or  Mr. 
Bradfute. 

March  9. 

Our  cousin's  accounts  of  thee  are  better  and  always  better,  but  we 
hear  of  sleepless  nights,  doctors,  and  sleep  provoked  by  medicine.  I 
entreat  thee,  my  poor  little  woman  !  compose  thy  sad  heart.  Alas, 
alas !  I  bid  thee  cease  to  be  miserable,  and  thou  canst  not  cease. 
The  stroke  that  has  fallen  is  indeed  irreparable,  tmd  tears,  hot, 
sorrowful  tears,  are  due  to  the  departed  who  Avill  meet  us  here  no 
more.     We  shall  go  to  her  ;  she  shall  not  return  to  us.     So  it  was 


Carlyle  cd  Templand,  203 

in  the  Psalmist  David's  time  ;  so  it  is  in  ours,  and  will  be  to  the 
end  of  the  world — a  world  long  ago  defined  as  a  vale  of  tears,  in 
which,  if  we  did  not  know  of  veiy  truth  that  God  presided  over  it, 
and  did  incessantly  guide  it  towards  good  and  not  towards  evil,  we 
were  incontrollably  wretched. 

March  11. 
I  am  dreadfully  sad  in  the  mornings  before  I  get  up,  and  some 
kind  of  work  or  endeavour  after  work  fallen  to.  One  has  to  look 
at  the  black  enemy  steatiily  and  contemplate  him  in  solitude  for 
oneself.  All  sorrow  is  an  enemy,  but  it  carries  a  friends  message 
within  it  too.  Oh,  my  poor  Jeannie  !  all  life  is  as  death,  and  the 
true  Igdrasil  which  reaches  up  to  heaven  goes  do^vn  to  the  king- 
dom of  hell ;  and  God,  the  Everlasting  Good  and  Just,  is  in  it  all. 
We  have  no  words  for  these  things ;  we  are  to  be  silent  about 
them ;  yet  they  are  true,  for  ever  true.  My  dear  partner,  endea- 
vour to  still  all  feelings  that  can  end  in  no  action.  Compose  thy 
poor  little  heart  and  say,  though  with  tears,  '  God's  will  be  done.* 

Among  other  questions  requiring  answer  was,  first  and 
foremost,  what  was  to  be  done  with  Templand  itself  ? 
Tlie  house  and  farm  were  held  under  the  Duke  of  Buc- 
cloucli.     The  lease  had  yet  several  years  to  run. 

Templand  :  March  VX 
I  understand  it  takes  some  three  weeks  to  give  proper  notifica- 
tion. In  three  weeks  I  might  have  it  settled  and  bo  making  for 
Loudon  again.  I  do  not  dislike  a  kind  of  fellowship  with  the  dead 
for  that  length  of  time.  It  is  very  mournful,  almost  awful,  but  it 
is  wholesome  and  useful  for  me.  It  is  towards  Eternity  that  we 
are  all  bound.  It  is  in  Eternity  that  we  already  all  live  ;  and  aw- 
ful death  itself  is  but  another  phasis  of  life  which  also  is  awful, 
fearful,  and  wonderful,  reaching  to  heaven  and  hell.  Ah  me !  one 
feels  in  these  moments,  first  of  all,  how  beggarly,  almost  insulting 
to  one,  are  all  woi-ds  whatsoever,  when  such  a  thing  lies  there  ar- 
rived and  visible. 

The  first  intention  had  been  to  part  witli  the  place  and 
sell  the  furniture  ;  but  it  was  endeared  to  Carlyle  by  many 
recollections,  and  the  thought  occurred  to  him  whether  it 
might  not  be  better  to  keep  it  as  it  stood,  and  with  all  that 
it  contained,  as  a  summer  retreat,  or  perhaps  as  a  final 


204  Carlyle^s  Life  i7i  London. 

home  for  himself.  His  mother,  who  had  come  across  to 
stay  with  him,  perhaps  encouraged  the  feeling.  He  did 
not  propose  it ;  he  was  careful  to  propose  nothing  which 
his  wife  might  dislike  and  have  the  pain  of  rejecting.  He 
hinted  at  it  merely  as  a  passing  thought,  and  it  was  as  well 
that  he  did  no  more ;  for  he  saw  at  once  that  the  very  idea 
of  such  a  thing  was  intolerably  distressing  to  her,  and  of 
this  project  he  said  no  more. 

His  mother  went  home  after  a  week.  '  She  sent  you 
her  sympathy  and  blessing,'  Carlyle  wrote.  '  "  Thou  must 
tell  her  too,"  she  added,  "  whatever  ye  may  think  of  it, 
that  I  hope  she  will  get  this  great  trouble  sanctified  to  her 
yet,"  which  I  said  I  doubted  not  my  poor  Jane  in  her  own 
way  was  ever  struggling  to  obtain.' 

It  is  the  first  day  of  my  entire  solitude  here  (he  continued  [for 
Helen  was  also  gone]  on  March  22),  a  bright,  pale  March  day,  de- 
faced with  occasional  angry  gusts  of  storm.  I  feel  the  whole, 
however,  myself,  and  her  that  is  away,  to  be  full  of  mystery,  of 
sorrow  and  greatness  ;  God-like,  the  work  wholly  of  a  God.  La- 
ment not,  my  poor  Jane  !  As  sure  as  we  live  we  shall  yet  go  to 
her  ;  we  shall  before  long  join  her,  and  be  united,  we  and  all  our 
loved  ones,  even  in  such  a  way  as  God  Most  High  has  seen  good  ; 
which  way,  of  all  conceivable  ways,  is  it  not  verily  the  best  ? 
Speak  as  we  will,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  spoken  but  even 
this  :  God  is  great ;  God  is  good  ;  God's  will  be  done.  Flesh  and 
blood  do  rebel,  but  the  spirit  within  us  all  answers  :  Yes,  even  so. 
My  poor  woman ! 

In  the  quiet  at  Templand,  and  among  such  solemn  sur- 
roundings, London  and  its  noisy  vanities,  its  dinners  and 
its  hencoops,  did  not  seem  more  beautiful  to  Carlyle.  More 
than  ever  he  prayed  to  be  away  from  it.  At  that  house  it 
was  evident  that  Mrs.  Carlyle  could  not  bear  the  thought 
of  living.  But  there  was  Craigenputtock  not  far  off,  to- 
wards which  he  had  often  been  wistfully  looking.  Of 
this,  too,  liitlierto  she  had  refused  to  hear  so  much  as  a 
mention  j  but  it  was  now  her  own,  and  her  objection  might 


Deodh  of  Mrs.  Welsh.  205 

be  less.  They  could  afford  to  spend  something  to  improve 
its  comforts.  An  auction  sale  of  the  Templand  furniture, 
every  part  of  which  had  a  remembrance  attaching  to  it, 
was  in  itself  a  kind  of  sacrilege.  Again  he  would  merely 
hint. 

Once  or  twice  to-day  (he  said  at  the  close  of  the  same  letter)  it 
strikes  me,  if  you  did  not  so  dislike  Craigenputtock,  might  we  not 
cany  all  over  thither,  build  them  together  again,  and  avoid  a  sale  ? 
But  this,  I  am  afraid,  is  rather  wild.  I  myself  have  no  love  for 
Craigenputtock ;  but  the  place  might  still  be  saved,  made  even 
neater  than  ever,  and  while  it  continues  ours  there  is  a  kind  of 
necessity  for  our  going  thither  sometimes. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  leaving  Liverpool  and  returning  to 
London.  Her  answer  to  this  suggestion  did  not  immedi- 
ately arrive.  Perhaps  he  knew  that  she  would  not  like  it, 
and  may  have  himself  thought  no  further  about  the  mat- 
ter.    His  daily  missives  still  continued. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Templand  :  March  23. 
The  day  has  been  pale,  bright,  serene,  a  sort  of  Sabbath  to  me. 
The  Closebum  trees  were  all  loud  with  rooks.  The  cattle  seemed 
happy ;  the  unfathomable  azui*e  resting  beautifully  above  us  alL 
One  asks.  Is  man  alone  born  to  sorrow  that  has  neither  healing 
nor  blessedness  in  it  ?  All  nature  from  all  comers  .of  it  answei-s  No 
—for  all  the  wise  No.  Only  Yea  for  the  unwise,  who  have  man's 
susceptibilities,  appetites,  capabilities,  and  not  the  insights  and 
rugged  virtues  of  men.  The  sun— twilight  itself  coming  through 
tliis  poor  north  window  which  you  know  so  well — begins  to  fail  me. 

March  25. 
My  dear  good  Wife, — Your  kind  and  sad  little  note  arrived  this 
morning.  Never  mind  me  and  my  health.  The  country,  with  its 
sacred  stillness  and  freshness,  is  sure  to  amend  me  of  everything. 
Its  very  tempests  and  blistering  spring  showers  do  me  good  to 
witness.  God's  earth  !  It  is  good  for  me,  also,  to  be  left  quite 
alone  here,  alone  with  my  griefs  and  my  sins,  even  as  in  the  pres- 
ence of  one  sainted  and  gone  into  the  eternal  clearness.  God 
Most  High  is  over  us  both.     .     .     .    This  morning  I  hear  from 


206  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Adamson  ^  about  some  legacy  tax  and  the  inventory  of  effects.  I 
have  taken  order  about  it  and  answered  him.  To  you  this  only 
will  be  interesting,  that  she  had,  if  I  recollect,  189/.  lying  in  the 
bank,  so  needed  not  to  fear  money  straits  at  least.  Heaven  be 
praised  for  it !  Oh  Jeannie,  what  a  blessing  for  us  now  that  w^e 
fronted  poverty  instead  of  her  doing  it !  Could  the  Queen's  Treas- 
ury compensate  us  had  we  basely  left  her  to  such  a  struggle  ? 

He  had  to  regret  that  he  had  so  much  as  alluded  to 
Craigeiipnttock.  The  very  name  of  it  had,  in  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle's  weak,  agitated  state,  awakened  a  kind  of  horror. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Cheyne  Row. 

Templand:  March  26. 
Dear  Jeannie, — You  are  evidently  very  ill.  I  entreat  you  take 
care  of  yourself.  Do  not  tear  yourself  in  pieces.  As  to  Craigen- 
puttock,  that  was  a  passing  thought,  and  has  come  no  more  back. 
If  I  make  you  miserable,  it  shall  be  for  a  greater  blessedness  to 
myself  than  a  residence  there  among  the  savages.  Do  not  fret 
yourself  at  all  about  that  note.  ...  I  saw  very  well  what  you 
now  tell  me  ;  how  it  had  been.  The  worst  effect  of  all  on  me  was 
that  it  indicates  such  a  sick,  excitable  condition.  I  pray  you 
study  to  avoid  tohatevei-  can  lead  thitherward,  and  know  well 
always  that  I  cannot  deliberately  mean  anything  that  is  harmful 
to  you,  unjust,  or  painful  to  you.  Indeliberately  I  do  enough  of 
such  things  without  meaning  them.  I  w^alked  three  hours  in  the 
grey  March  mildness  down  to  the  Ford  or  Ferry  of  Barjarg,  and 
back  again  by  the  river-side  and  shaws.  It  was  a  road  I  more  than 
once  went  a  good  part  of  on  horseback  that  autumn  we  last  tried 
to  stay  here.  Alas !  how  all  the  faults  and  little  infirmities  of  the 
departed  seem  now  what  they  really  were,  mere  virtues  imprisoned, 
obstructed  in  the  strange,  sensitive,  tremulous  element  they  were 
sent  to  live  in  !  Of  that  once  more  I  could  not  but  think  to-day. 
There  is  something  in  these  remembrances  that  would  drive  one 
to  weeping.  Templand  in  the  distance  looked  to  me  like  a  kind 
of  pure  Hades  and  shrine  of  the  dead,  poor  little  Auntie's  figure 
lying  in  death  in  it,'^  and  then  in  succession  the  second,  and  now 

1 1  suppose  a  Dumfries  official, 

2  Aunt  Jeannie.  I  have  found  a  letter  lying  out  of  its  place  among  Carlyle's 
papers,  written  from  Craigenputtock  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  on  the  occasion  of  Aunt 
Jeannie's  death.     I  had  not  seen  it  when  I  wrote  the  account  of  that  part  of 


Letters  from  Teinpland.  207 

the  third.  The  rooks  are  cawing  all  round,  the  river  rushing  ever 
on,  a  sacred  silence  of  all  human  sounds  resting  far  and  wide.  It 
is  very  mournful  to  me,  but  preferable  to  anything  that  could  be 
offered  me  of  the  sort  they  call  joy. 

Poor  Steiiing !  setting  off  to-morrow  again  on  his  old  hapless 
en-and  ;  '  and  yet  who  knows  whether  at  bottom  it  is  n*ot  a  kind  of 
good  to  him  ?  Were  it  not  for  tliis  sickness  that  always  opens  an 
issue,  I  see  not  but  he  must  either  write  a  tmgedy,  or  failing  that, 
break  his  heart,  and  so  act  one.  Probably  he  himself  is  not  with- 
out some  unconscious  feeling  of  that  sort,  which  in  the  background 
may  lie  as  a  kind  of  consolation  to  him.  Poor  fellow  !  Enough 
now,  and  good  night  to  cousin  Jeannie  and  you,  from  the  loneliest 
man  in  all  the  world — or  at  least  as  lonely  as  any.  Good  night, 
and  a  blessing  be  with  you  1 

AprU  3. 

Yesterday  I  set  out  in  the  rough  wind,  while  the  weather  was 
diy,  for  a  long  walk.  I  went  by  Penpont,  up  Scaur  Water,  round 
the  foot  of  Tynron  Doon.  I  had  all  along  been  remembering  a 
poor  little  joiner's  cottage  which  I  saw  once  when  ix)or  Auntie  and 
you  and  I  went  up  on  ponies.     This  ride,  this  cottage,  which  was 

his  life,  and  so  give  it  in  a  note  here,  as  it  is  too  beautiful  to  be  passed  over. 
TluTc  is  no  date,  but  it  belongs  to  the  year  1832.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  then  at 
Tenipland,  and  had  sent  up  word  to  her  husband  that  her  aunt  had  gone. 

Craigenputtock  :  1832. 

Your  sad  messenger  is  jnst  arrived.  I  had  again  been  cherishing  hopes 
when  the  day  of  hope  was  clean  gone.  Compose  yourself,  my  beloved  wife, 
and  try  to  feel  that  the  Great  Father  is  good,  and  can  do  nothing  wrong,  in- 
scrutable and  stern  as  His  ways  often  seem  to  us.  Surely,  surely,  there  is  a 
life  beyond  death,  and  that  gloomy  portal  leads  to  a  purer  and  an  abiding 
mansion  ?  Suffering  angel !  But  she  is  now  free  from  suffering,  and  they 
whom  she  can  no  longer  watch  over  are  alone  to  be  deplored.  ...  It 
seems  uncertain  to  me  whether  I  can  be  aught  but  an  encumbrance  at  Temp- 
land.  Yet  I  feel  called  to  hasten  towards  j/ou  at  this  so  trying  moment.  I 
mean  to  set  out  for  Dumfries  and  order  mournings,  and  be  with  you  tome 
time  to-night.  I  am  almost  lamed  for  riding,  so  that  it  may  be  rather  late 
before  I  can  arrive. 

My  moUier  is  here,  and  bids  me  with  tears  in  her  eyes  send  you  her  truest 
love  and  prayers  that  God  may  sanctify  to  you  this  heavy  stroke.  '  The 
world,'  she  says,  'is  a  lie,  but  God  is  a  truth,  and  His  goodness  abideth  for 
ever.' 

May  He  keep  and  watch  over  my  beloved  one  ! 

I  am  always  her  afTectionate 

T.  Casltle. 

*  Sent  abroad,  Falmouth  not  answering. 


208  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

the  centre  of  it  in  my  memory,  I  would  again  recall,  by  looking  at 
the  places — the  places  which  still  abide  while  all  else  vanishes  so 
soon.  It  was  a  day  of  tempestuous  wind  ;  but  the  sun  occasionally 
shone ;  the  countiy  was  green,  bright ;  the  hills  of  an  almost 
spiritual  clearness,  and  broad  swift  storms  of  hail  came  dashing 
down  from  them  on  this  hand  and  that.  It  was  a  kind  of  preter- 
natural walk,  full  of  sadness,  full  of  purity. 

The  Scaur  Water,  the  clearest  I  ever  saw  except  one,  came 
brawling  down,  the  voice  of  it  like  a  lamentation  among  the  winds, 
answering  me  as  the  voice  of  a  brother  wanderer  and  lamenter, 
wanderer  like  me  through  a  certain  portion  of  eternity  and  infinite 
space.  Poor  brook  !  yet  it  was  nothing  but  drops  of  water.  My 
thought  alone  gave  it  an  individuality.  It  was  /  that  was  the  wan- 
derer, far  older  and  stronger  and  greater  than  the  Scaur,  or  any 
river  or  mountain,  or  earth,  planet,  or  thing.  The  poor  joiner's 
cottage  I  could  not  recognise ;  no  joiner,  at  least,  was  now  there. 

My  stay  here  has  now  a  fixed  term  set  to  it.  After  Thursday, 
come  a  week,  there  will  be  no  habitation  for  me  here.  I  went  to 
the  Factor,  as  I  proposed,  on  Friday — a  harmless,  intelligent 
enough,  rather  wersh-lodkmg  man.  '  He  had  no  power,'  he  told 
me.  'The  Duke's  answer'  could  not  be  here  till  the  end  of  7iext 
week.  There  was  little  doubt  but  it  would  be  as  I  wished.  I  de- 
cided straightway  on  proceeding  with  the  sale  and  the  other  as- 
sortments, waiting  no  longer  for  'Dukes'  and  dependents  of 
Dukes.  Their  part  of  the  business  will  gradually  be  settling  itself 
in  the  interim.  The  babbling  inconclusive  palaver  of  the  rustic 
population  here,  if  you  have  anything  to  with  them,  is  altogether 
beyond  a  jest  to  me.     I  positively  feel  it  immoral  and  disgusting. 

April  5. 

Margaret, '  set  a  talking  by  some  questions  of  mine,  has  had  me 
at  the  edge  of  crying,  or  altogether  crying.  On  the  last  fatal  Fri- 
day morning  the  poor  sick  one  said  to  her,  '  Margaret,  I  have  had 
a  bonny  dream.  I  dreamt  that  my  son  was  writing  a  book  with  his 
heart's  blood,'  meaning,  I  suppose,  that  it  was  to  be  a  right  excel- 
lent book.  Good  God  !  I  shall  never  forget  that.  It  will  stick  in 
my  memory  for  ever  more.  But  why  do  we  mourn  ?  As  far  as  I 
can  gather,  she  died  without  pain.  Margaret  says  she  had  never 
slept  so  well,  and  bragged  of  her  health  and  was  in  a  cheerful  jok- 
ing humour  not  many  minutes  before.     The  great  God  is  merciful ; 

^  Margaret  Hiddlestone,  who  had  been  Mrs.  Welsh's  servant,  and  was  after- 
wardg  Mrs.  Carlyle's  pensioner  till  her  death. 


Death  of  Mrs.  Welsh.  209 

the  stroke  could  not  have  been  delivered  more  softly.  But  that 
*  bonny  dream ' !  Oh  Jeannie  !  that  is  a  thing  inexpressibly  sorrow- 
ful and  sweet  to  me.  I  have  set  you  crying  again,  I  doubt.  I  did 
not  mean  that. 

Among  these  letters  to  Mrs.  Carlylc  I  intercalate  one 
written  on  this  same  5th  of  April  to  Mr.  Erskine,  who  had 
offered  warm  and  wise  sympathy  in  his  friend's  sorrov*'. 

To  Thomas  Erskine^  Linlathen. 

Templand :  April  5. 

Dear  Mr.  Ei-skine, — I  know  not  whether  my  poor  wife  has  yet 
answered  the  letter  you  sent  to  her,  but  I  know  that,  if  not,  yet  she 
means  with  her  earliest  strength  to  do  so ;  for  she  described  it  as 
ha\4ng  been  a  tme  solace  to  her,  as  having  *  told  her  the  very 
things  she  was  thinking ' — a  most  naKve  and  complete  definition  of 
a  letter  that  desei-ved  to  be  written.  Thanks  to  you  in  her  name 
and  my  own.  The  poor  heart  seems  gathering  composure  gradu- 
ally, though  still  very  weak;  and  in  weak  bodily  health  too, 
imprisoned  by  the  rough  spring  weather.  A  young  cousin  is  with 
her  at  Chelsea:  a  cheery,  sensible,  affectionate  girl,  whom  she 
describes  as  a  great  support  to  her.  Mrs.  Rich  and  all  her  friends, 
summoned  by  a  great  calamity,  had  shown  themselves  full  of  sym- 
pathy and  help.  It  is  what  mortals  owe  to  one  another  in  such 
a  season.  The  little  birds  shrink  lovingly  together  when  a  great 
gyr-falcon  has  smitten  one  of  them.  Death  I  account  always  as  a 
great  deliverance,  a  dark  door  into  Peace,  into  everlasting  Hope. 
But  it  is  also  well  named  from  of  old  the  King  of  TeiTora — a  huge 
demon-falcon  rising  miraculously  we  know  not  whence,  to  snatch 
us  away  from  one  another's  sight  we  know  not  whither !  Had  not 
a  God  made  this  world,  and  made  Death  too,  it  were  an  insupport- 
able place.  '  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him.'  Even 
so.     In  whom  else,  or  in  what  else  ? 

My  days  pass  along  here,  where  a  multiplicity  of  small  things 
still  detains  but  does  not  occupy  me,  in  a  most  silent,  almovst 
sabbath-like  manner.  I  avoid  all  company  whatever — except  the 
few  poor  greedy-minded  very  stupid  rustics  who  have  some  affairs 
with  me,  wliich  I  struggle  always  to  despatch  and  cut  short.  I  see 
nobody ;  I  do  not  even  read  much.  The  old  hills  and  rivers,  the 
old  earth  with  her  star  firmaments  and  burial-vaults,  carry  on  a 
mysterious  unfathomable  dialogue  with  me.  It  is  eight  years  since 
I  have  seen  a  spring,  and  in  such  a  mood  I  never  saw  one.  It  seems 
Vol.  IIL— 14 


210  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

all  new  and  original  to  me — beautiful,  almost  solemn.  Whose  great 
laboratory  is  that?  The  hills  stand  snow-powdered,  pale,  bright. 
The  black  hailstorm  awakens  in  them,  rushes  down  like  a  black 
swift  ocean  tide,  valley  answering  valley ;  and  again  the  sun  blinks 
out,  and  the  poor  sower  is  casting  his  grain  into  the  furrow,  hope- 
ful he  that  the  Zodiacs  and  far  Heavenly  Horologes  have  not  fal- 
tered ;  that  there  will  be  yet  another  summer  added  for  us  and 
another  harvest.  Our  whole  heart  asks  with  Napoleon  :  '  Mes- 
sieurs, who  made  all  that  ?     Be  silent,  foolish  Messieurs  ! ' 

Mrs.  Carljle's  letters  from  Cheyne  Eow  showed  no  re- 
covery of  spirits.  Wise  comfort,  wise  reflection  upon  life 
and  duty,  was  the  best  cordial  Carlyle  could  administer. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Templand  :  April  9. 
No  wonder,  my  dear  wife,  you  feel  disheartened  and  sick  about 
all  work  and  weary  of  the  world  generally.  Benevolence,  I  agree 
with  you,  is  no  trade ;  altogether,  or  nearly  altogether,  a  futility 
when  followed  as  a  trade.  Yet  work  does  still  remain  to  be  done, 
and  the  highest  law  does  order  us  all  to  work.  My  prayer  is,  and 
always  has  been,  that  you  would  rouse  up  the  fine  faculties  that 
are  yours  into  some  course  of  real  work  which  you  felt  to  be  worthy 
of  them  and  you.  Your  life  would  not  then  be  happy,  but  it  would 
cease  to  be  miserable.  It  would  become  noble  and  clear  with  a 
kind  of  sacredness  shining  through  it.  I  know  well,  none  better, 
how  difficult  it  all  is,  how  peculiar  and  original  your  lot  looks  to 
you,  and  in  many  ways  is.  Nobody  can  find  work  easily  if  much 
work  do  lie  in  him ;  all  of  us  are  in  horrible  difficulties  that  look 
invincible,  but  that  are  not  so.  The  deepest  difficulty  which  also 
presses  on  us  all  is  the  sick  sentimentalism  we  suck  in  with  our 
whole  nourishment,  and  get  ingi-ained  into  the  very  blood  of  us  in 
these  miserable  ages  !  I  actually  do  think  it  the  deepest.  It  is 
this  that  makes  me  so  impatient  of  George  Sand,  Mazzini,  and  all 
that  set  of  prophets  ;  impatient  so  far  as  often  to  be  unjust  to  what 
of  truth  and  genuine  propriety  of  aim  is  in  them.  Alas  !  how  often 
have  I  provokingly  argued  with  you  about  all  that !  I  actually  will 
endeavor  not  to  do  so  any  more.  It  is  not  by  arguing  that  I  can 
ever  hope  to  do  you  any  service  on  that  side  ;  but  I  will  never  give 
up  the  hope  to  see  you  adequately  busy  with  your  whole  mind  dis- 
covering, as  all  human  beings  may  do,  that  in  the  grimmest  rocky 


Letters  from  Templand.  211 

wildernesses  of  existence,  there  are  blessed  well-springs,  there  is  an 
everlasting  guiding  star. 

Courage,  my  poor  little  Jeannie  !  Ah  me  !  Had  I  been  other, 
for  you  too  it  might  have  been  all  easier.  But  I  was  not  other  : 
I  was  even  this.  In  such  solemn  seasons,  let  us  both  cry  for  help 
to  be  better  for  each  other,  and  for  all  duties  in  time  coming. 
Articulate  pi-ayer  is  for  me  not  possible,  but  the  equivalent  of  it 
remains  for  ever  in  the-  heart  and  life  of  man.  I  say  let  us  pray. 
.  .  .  God  look  down  upon  us ;  guide  us,  not  happily  but 
well,  through  life.  Unite  us  well  with  our  buried  ones  according 
to  His  will.  Amen.  .  .  .  My  mother,  with  a  kind,  speechless 
heart,  does  speak  so  far  as  to  ask  if  I  will  send  you  her  blessing. 
She  was  telling  me  yesterday  all  about  the  last  pai-ting  with  her 
mother,  how  she  came  out  to  the  middle  of  the  road  to  take  leave 
of  them,  &c.  Old  scenes,  images  sunk  forty  years  in  the  past 
which  can  still  bring  tears  into  old  eyes.  Ah  me!  Ah  me! 
Well,  I  will  not  add  another  word  to-day,  for  I  have  still  much 
to  do,  and  have  written  more  than  enough.  Adieu,  dearest !  God 
be  with  you ! — He  that  can  wipe  away  all  tears  from  our  eyes.  All 
tears  !  Ever  your  affectionate 

T.  Cablyle. 

Heirlooms,  and  some  few  other  relics  at  Templand, 
were  packed  and  sent  to  London.  The  remainder  of  the 
stock  was  sold  by  auction  on  April  12,  and  Carljle,  un- 
able to  witness  so  hateful  a  scene,  spent  the  morning  at 
Crawford  Churchyard,  where  Mrs.  Welsh  was  buried. 
The  first  part  of  the  next  letter  was  written  there,  the 
conclusion  when  he  returned  in  the  evening  to  the  desolate 
house. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlt/le. 

Crawford  :  April  14. 

I  have  spent  two  hours  at  the  place.  ...  All  is  composed 
there  into  decent  regularity,  and  lies  overlooked  by  the  old  wilder- 
ness as  in  everlasting  rest.  I  have  copied  the  inscription  lineatim. 
I  thought  you  would  like  to  see  it  that  way  too.  I  also  copied  your 
grandfather's  memorial,  evidently  composed  by  her.  The  man  has 
cut  the  letters  deep,  correct,  and  very  well ;  excellently  well  as 
far  as  lettering  goes — one  or  two  mistakes  of  |X)ints  (one  especially 
aflfecting  the  sense  to  a  gi*animmian)  which  I  could  not  bear  to 


212  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

leave.  I  went  to  the  nearest  farmhouse  (close  by),  borrowed  a 
chisel  and  hammer,  and  succeeded  in  making  it  all  correct.  The 
stone  stands  level,  firm,  raised  by  six  pillarets  upon  another,  which 
is  flat,  horizontal,  and  level  with  the  ground.  Grandfather  and 
grandmother,  and  then  a  great-grandmother,  I  think,  of  date  1737, 
lie  farther  to  the  south.  One  ewe  and  her  little  black-faced  lamb 
were  the  only  things  visible  about  the  spot.  The  Clyde  rolled  by 
its  everlasting  course.  The  north  wind  was  moaning  through 
some  score  of  trees  that  stand  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Gottes- 
Acker.  What  a  name ! — a  right  name.  The  old  hills  rested 
mournful,  desolate,  pure  and  strong  all  round.  I  could  see  Cas- 
tlemaine  from  the  spot. 

Templand :  Evening. 
It  was  on  the  whole  very  well  you  did  not  come  hither.  All 
things  would  have  fallen  with  such  a  deadly  weight  of  grief  upon 
you.  Vacant !  Vacant !  The  transitory  still  here ;  so  much  that 
was  transitory  proved  more  lasting  than  what  we  wished  to  con- 
tinue for  ever.  The  mark  of  her  neat,  orderly  hand,  full  of  hum- 
ble, thrifty  elegance,  very  touching  in  itself  anywhere  and  eveiy- 
where,  is  in  all  corners  of  this  house  ;  and  she — has  gone  a  long 
journey.  Patience,  my  darling !  She  has  gone  whither  we  are 
swiftly  following  her.  Perhaps  essentially  she  is  still  near  us. 
Near  and  far  do  not  belong  to  that  eternal  world  which  is  not  of 
space  and  time.  God  rules  that  too;  we  know  nothing  more. 
The  sight  of  these  poor  flowers  which  I  have  gathered  for  you  has 
led  me  into  thoughts  which  perhaps  I  had  better  have  spared. 
The  poor  little  flowers  have  all  ventured  out  this  bright  day,  and 
there  is  nobody  to  bid  them  right  welcome  now. 

The  next  morning  Carlyle  took  his  last  leave  of  Temp- 
land,  and  went  to  pass  a  few  qniet  days  with  his  mother. 
As  a  close  of  this  episode  I  add  a  few  lines  sent  to  him  by 
a  friend  whom  he  rarely  saw,  who  is  seldom  mentioned  in 
connection  with  his  history,  yet  who  then  and  always  was 
exceptionally  dear  to  him.  The  lines  themselves  were 
often  on  his  lips  to  the  end  of  his  own  life,  and  will  not 
be  easily  forgotten  by  anyone  who  reads  them.  He  says 
in  his  notes  to  the  '  Letters  and  Memorials  of  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle,' that  while  at  Templand  he  received  three  or  four 


Lines  from  Lockhart.  213 

friendly  serious  notes  from   Lockhart.     In  one  of  these, 
dated  April  1,  was  written  : — 

It  is  an  old  belief 

That  on  some  solemn  shore, 
Beyond  the  sphere  of  grief, 

Dear  friends  shall  meet  once  more: 

Beyond  the  sphere  of  time, 

And  sin,  and  fate's  control. 
Serene  in  changeless  prime 

Of  body  and  of  soul. 

That  creed  I  fain  wonld  keep. 

This  hope  I'll  not  forego ; 
Eternal  be  the  sleep, 

If  not  to  waken  so. 

At  Scotsbrig  ordinary  subjects  resumed  their  interest, 
and  Carlyle  began  to  think  again,  though  not  \evy  heartily, 
of  his  own  work.  Tedious  business  still  detained  him  in 
Dumfriesshire.  He  could  not  leave  till  he  had  disposed 
of  the  lease  of  Templand.  The  agents  of  the  noble  Duke 
could  not,  consistently  with  their  master's  dignity,  be  rapid 
in  their  resolutions.  Carlyle  became  impatient,  and  re- 
lieved his  feelings  in  characteristic  fashion. 

To  Jaiie  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  April  19,  1843. 

Cromwell  sometimes  rises  upon  me  here,  but  as  a  thing  lost  in 
abysses,  sunk  beyond  the  horizon,  and  only  throwing  up  a  sad 
twilight  of  remembrance.  I  sometimes  think  I  will  pack  up  all 
Fuz's  books  together  at  my  return  and  send  them  away.  I  never 
yet  was  in  the  right  track  to  do  that  book.  Yet  Cromwell  is  with 
me  the  fit  subject  of  a  book,  could  I  only  say  of  what  book.  I 
must  yet  hang  by  him.  But,  indeed,  if  I  live,  a  new  epoch  will 
have  to  unfold  itself  with  me.  There  are  new  things,  and  as  yet 
no  new  dialect  for  tliem.  The  time  of  my  youth  is  past ;  that  of 
my  age  is  not  yet  fully  come. 

No  Duke's  answer  can  arrive,  I  suppose,  till  the  end  of  this  week. 
It  is  a  wonderful  relief  to  me,  that  I  have  here  got  fairly  out  of  the 
choking,  sycophant  Duke  element,  which  tempted  me  at  every 


214  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

turn  to  exclaim,  '  May  the  devil  and  his  grandmother  fly  away  with 
your  shabble  of  a  Duke  !  '  What  in  God's  name  have  I  to  do  with 
him  ?  All  the  Dukes  in  creation  melted  into  one  Duke  were  not 
worth  sixpence  to  me.  I  declare  I  could  not  live  there  at  all  in 
such  an  accursed,  soul-oppressing  puddle  of  a  Dukery. 

April  25. 
I  believe  the  thing  is  in  a  fair  way  of  being  what  is  to  be  ac- 
counted here  as  *  finished. '    I  have  seen  the  Factor  and,  as  it  were, 
come  in  '  the  Lord  their  God  his  Grace's  will.' 

April  31. 

Let  us  be  thankful  that  the  sorrowful  business,  taliter  qualiter, 
is  over,  and  no  more  agitations  on  that  score  are  to  be  apprehended 
for  you.  As  for  the  home  at  Chelsea,  if  you  like  it,  do  not  regard 
much  my  dislike  of  it.  I  cannot  be  healthy  anywhere  under  the 
sun.  I  am  a  perceptible  degree  unhealthier  in  London  than  else- 
where ;  but  London,  I  do  feel  withal,  is  the  only  spot  in  the  earth 
where  I  can  enjoy  something  like  the  blessedness  of  freedom  ;  and 
this  I  ought  to  be  willing  to  purchase  at  the  expense  of  dirt,  smoke, 
tumult,  and  annoyance  of  varioiis  kinds.  I  must  run  into  the 
country  when  the  town  gets  insupportable  to  me.  But  I  ought 
not  to  quit  hold  of  town.  To  live  in  cloth  worship  of  his  Grace 
the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  for  example — I  confess  I  should  hesitate 
between  Monmouth  Street  and  that.  Not  that,  I  should  say ; 
anything  rather  than  that. 

To-day  I  have  lain  on  a  sofa  and  read  the  whole  history  of  the 
family  of  Carlyle.  Positively  not  so  bad  reading.  I  discover  there 
what  illustrious  genealogies  we  have  ;  a  whole  regiment  of  Thomas 
Carlyles,  wide  possessions,  all  over  Annandale,  Cumberland,  Dur- 
ham, gone  all  now  into  the  uttermost  wreck,  absorbed  into  Doug- 
lasdom,  Drumlanrigdom,  and  the  devil  knows  what.  Two  of  us 
have  written  plays,  one  could  carve  organs,  sculpture  horses  ;  Mrs. 
Jameson's  old  Carlyle  was  cousin  of  Bridekirk.  I  suppose  I,  too, 
must  have  been  meant  for  a  Duke,  but  the  means  were  dropped  in 
the  i)assage. 

He  liad  small  respect  for  dukes  and  such-like,  and  per- 
haps Tempi  and  would  not  have  answered  with  him  if  he 
had  kept  it;  but  he  had  a  curious  pride  also  in  his  own 
family.  There  was  reason  to  believe  that  his  own  father 
was  tlie  acfual   representative   of  the  Lords  Carlyle  of 


Annandale  Incidents.  215 

Torthorwakl ;  and,  tliongli  he  laughed  when  he  spoke  of 
it,  he  M'as  dearly  not  displeased  to  know  that  he  had  noble 
blood  in  him.  Rustic  as  he  was  in  habits,  dress,  and  com- 
plexion, he  had  a  knightly,  chivalrous  temperament,  and 
line  natural  courtesy  ;  another  sure  sign  of  good  breeding 
was  his  hand,  which  was  small,  perfectly  shaped,  with  long 
fine  fingers  and  aristocratic  finger-nails.  lie  knew  well 
enough,  however,  that  with  him,  as  he  w^as,  pedigrees  and 
such-like  had  nothing  to  do.  The  descent  which  he  prized 
w^as  the  descent  from  pious  and  worthy  parents,  and  the 
fortunes  and  misfortunes  of  the  neighbouring  peasant  fam- 
ilies were  of  more  real  interest  to  him  tlian  aristocratic 
genealogies. 

To  Jane   Welsh  Carhjle. 

Scotsbrig  :  May  3,  1843. 

My  clear  "Wife, — This  is  to  be  the  last  note  I  write  to  you  from 
Scotsbrig  on  the  present  occasion.  Nothing  new  is  to  be  com- 
municated. The  day  has  passed  over  to  this  hour,  four  o'clock, 
without  recordable  incident.  I  have  been  twice  upon  the  moor 
since  six,  when  I  awoke.  I  have  seen  poor  cattle  straying  over 
these  barren  bogs ;  poor  ploughmen  toiling  in  the  red  furrow, 
their  ploughshares  gleaming  in  the  sun — a  most  innocuous  flash  ; 
they  and  their  huts,  and  their  whole  existence  looking  sad,  almost 
l^athetic  to  mo.  They  are  veiy  poor  in  person,  poor  in  purpose, 
l^rinciple,  for  the  most  part  in  all  that  makes  the  wealth  of  a  man. 

Poor  devils  !  The  farmer  of  Stennybeck,  the  next  place  to  this, 
has  a  mother  stone-blind,  whom  I  remember  out  of  infancy  as  a 
brisk,  buxom  lass  that  sate  in  the  kirk  with  me.  Utter  poverty — 
financiering  equal  to  a  Chancellor's  of  the  Exchequer — has  at- 
tended them  these  many  years,  even  in  the  near  background  a 
gaol ;  and  now  yesterday  the  jDOor  blind  woman,  searching  down 
some  heavy  chum  from  the  garret — for  she  works  and  bustles  all 
over  the  house — tumbled  through  a  trapdoor  and  nearly  killed 
herself.  Unfortunate  souls !  The  man  asked  Jamie  one  day, 
'  What  d'ye  think  will  come  of  me  ? '  Peel's  tariff  has  taken  some 
twenty  pounds  from  him,  and — his  Laird  is  rioting  throngh  the 
world  like  a  broken  blackguard.  I  am  wao  to  look  on  poor  old 
Annandale,  poor  old  England— the  devil  is  busy  with  us  all. 


216  Carlyle's  Life  in  Lo^idon, 

What  a  pity  a  man  cannot  sleep,  and  so  live  something  like 
other  men  !  For  the  rest,  it  is  no  secret  to  me  that  he  ought  still 
to  keep  a  bridle  on  himself,  and  not  let  insomnolence  nor  any 
other  j)erversity  drive  him  beyond  limits. 

Yesterday  I  got  my  hair  cropped,  partly  by  my  own  endeavours 
in  the  front,  chiefly  by  sister  Jenny's  in  the  rear.  I  fear  you  will 
think  it  rather  an  original  cut. 

It  was  on  Carlyle's  return  from  Scotland,  a  day  or  two 
after  the  date  of  this  last  letter,  that  he  paid  the  visit  to 
Rugby  of  which  Dean  Stanley  speaks  in  his  life  of  Dr. 
Arnold.  Arnold,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  written  to 
Carljde  after  reading  the  Trench  Ke volution.'  He  had 
sympathised  warmly  also  with  his  tract  on  '  Chartism,' 
and  his  views  as  to  the  mights  or  rights  of  English  work- 
ing men.  Cromwell,  w^ho  was  to  be  the  next  subject,  was 
equally  interesting  to  Arnold  ;  and  hearing  that  Carlyle 
w^ould  be  passing  Rugby,  he  begged  him  to  pause  on  tlie 
way,  when  they  could  examine  I^aseby  field  together. 

Carlyle,  on  his  side,  had  much  personal  respect  for  the 
great  Arnold — for  Arnold  himself  as  a  man,  though  very 
little  for  his  opinions.  He  saw  men  of  ability  all  round 
him  professing  orthodoxy  and  holding  office  in  the 
Church,  while  they  regarded  it  merely  as  an  institution  of 
general  expediency,  with  which  their  private  convictions 
had  nothing  to  do.  Such  men  aimed  only  at  success  in 
the  world,  and  if  they  chose  to  sell  their  souls  for  it,  the 
article  which  they  parted  with  was  of  no  particular  value. 
But  Arnold  was  of  a  higher  stamp.  While  a  Liberal  in 
politics  and  philosophy,  and  an  historical  student,  he 
imagined  himself  a  real  believer  in  the  Christian  religion, 
and  Carlyle  was  well  assured  that  to  men  of  Arnold's 
principles  it  had  no  ground  to  stand  on,  and  that  the  clear- 
sighted among  them  would,  before  long,  have  to  choose 
between  an  honest  abandonment  of  an  untenable  position 
and  a  trifling  with  their  own  understandings,  which  must 


Vtsit  to  Rughy.  ^Yl 

soon  degenerate  into  conscious  insincerity.  Arnold,  Car- 
lyle  once  said  to  me,  was  happy  in  being  taken  away 
before  the  alternative  was  forced  upon  him.  lie  died,  in 
fact,  six  weeks  after  the  visit  of  which  the  following 
letter  contains  the  account. 

To  Mrs.  Aitketif  Dumfries. 

Chelsea :  May  10,  1843. 
I  had  from  Scotsbrig  appointed  to  pause  about  seventy  miles 
from  London,  and  pay  a  visit  to  a  certain  Oxford  dignitary  of  dis- 
tinction, one  Dr.  Arnold,  Master  of  Rugby  School.  I  would 
willingly  have  paid  five  pounds  all  the  day  to  be  honourably  off ; 
but  it  clearly  revealed  itself  to  me  'thou  should'st  veritably  go,' 
so  at  Birmingliam  I  booked  myself  and  went.  Right  well  that  I 
did  so,  for  the  contrary  would  have  looked  like  the  work  a  fool ; 
and  the  people  all  at  Rugby  were  of  especial  kindness  to  me,  and 
I  was  really  glad  to  have  made  their  acquaintance.  Next  day  they 
drove  me  over  some  fifteen  miles  off  to  see  the  field  of  Naseby 
fight — OUver  Cromwell's  chief  battle,  or  one  of  his  chief.  It  was 
a  grand  scene  for  me — Naseby.  A  venerable  hamlet,  larger  than 
Middlebie,  all  built  of  mud,  but  trim  with  high  peaked  roofs,  and 
two  feet  thick  of  smooth  thatch  on  them,  and  plenty  of  trees 
scattered  round  and  among.  It  is  built  as  on  the  brow  of  the 
Hagheads  at  Ecclefechan  ;  Cromwell  lay  ^i-ith  his  back  to  that, 
and  King  Charles  was  drawn  up  as  at  Wull  Welsh's — only  the 
Sinclair  burn  must  be  mostly  dried,  and  the  hollow  much  wider 
and  deeper.  They  flew  at  one  another,  and  Cromwell  ultimately 
*  brashed  him  all  to  roons.'  I  plucked  two  go  wans  and  a  cowslip 
fromr  the  burial  heaps  of  the  slain,  which  still  stand  as  heaps,  but 
sunk  away  in  the  middle.  At  seven  o'clock  they  liad  me  homo 
again,  dinnered,  and  off  in  the  last  railway  train. 


CHAPTER  X. 

A.D.  1842.     ^T.  47. 

Beturn  to  London — Sees  the  House  of  Commons — Yachting  trip  to 
Ostend — Bathing  adventure — Church  at  Bruges — Hotel  at 
Ghent — Beflections  on  modern  music — Walk  through  the 
town — A  lace  girl — An  old  soldier — Artisans  at  dinner — The 
*  Vigilant '  and  her  crew — Visit  from  Owen — Bide  in  the 
Eastern  counties — Ely  Cathedral — St.  Ives — Past  and  Present. 

The  season  was  not  over  when  Carljle  was  again  at  home 
after  his  long  absence,  but  tlie  sad  occupations  of  the 
spring,  and  the  sad  thoughts  which  they  had  brought  with 
them,  disinclined  him  for  society.  The  summer  opened 
with  heat.  He  had  a  room  arranged  for  him  at  the  top 
of  his  house  at  the  back,  looking  over  gardens  and  red 
roofs  and  trees,  with  the  river  and  its  barges  on  his  right 
hand,  and  the  Abbey  in  the  distance.  There  he  sate  and 
smoked,  and  read  books  on  Cromwell,  the  sight  of  Xaseby 
having  brought  the  subject  back  out  of  '  the  abysses.' 
Forster's  volumes  were  not  sent  back  to  him.  Visitors 
were  not  admitted,  or  were  left  to  be  entertained  in  the 
drawing-room. 

*  June  17. 
I  sit  here  (he  wi'ote  to  his  mother),  and  think  of  you  many  a  time 
and  of  all  imaginable  things.  I  say  to  myself,  '  Why  shoulds't  thou 
not  be  thankful  ?  God  is  good  ;  all  this  life  is  a  heavenly  miracle, 
great,  though  stern  and  sad. '  Poor  Jane  and  her  cousin  sit  in  the 
low  room  which  extends  through  the  whole  breadth  of  the  house, 
and  has  windows  on  both  sides.  There  they  sew,  read,  see  com- 
pany, and  keep  it  out  of  my  way.  Poor  Jane  is  still  very  sad, 
takes  fits  of  crying,  and  is  perhaps  still  more  sorrowful  when  she 


Tlis  B  idler  Family,  219 

does  not  cry.  I  try  to  get  her  advised  out  as  much  as  possible. 
John  Stirling  is  come  to  London  for  tliese  two  weeks,  home  from 
Italy.  He  will  be  a  new  resource  to  her ;  she  seems  to  get  no 
good  of  anything  but  the  sympathy  of  her  friends. 

Of  these  friends  the  most  actively  anxious  to  be  kind 
were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  BuUer,  with  whom  Carlyle  had 
been  at  Kinnaird.  Their  eldest  son,  Charles,  who  had 
been  his  pupil,  was  now  in  the  front  rank  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  lieginald,  the  youngest,  bad  a  living  at  Tros- 
ton,  in  Suffolk,  with  a  roomy  parsonage.  His  father  and 
mother  had  arranged  to  spend  July  and  August  there,  and 
they  pressed  Mrs.  Carlyle  to  go  with  them  for  change  of 
scene.  Mrs.  Carlyle  gratefully  consented.  She  liked 
Mrs.  Buller,  and  the  Bullers'  ways  suited  her.  It  was 
settled  that  they  were  to  go  first,  and  she  was  to  follow. 
Carlyle's  own  movements  were  left  doubtful,  lie,  after 
so  long  an  interruption  of  his  work,  did  not  wish  to  move 
again  immediately  ;  but  he  was  very  grateful  to  Mrs.  Bul- 
ler for  her  kindness  to  his  wife,  and  when  she  asked  him 
in  return  to  go  to  the  House  of  Commons  to  hear  her  son 
speak,  he  could  not  refuse.  He  had  never  been  there  be- 
fore ;  I  believe  he  never  went  again  ;  but  it  was  a  thing 
to  see  once,  and  though  the  sight  did  not  inspire  him  with 
reverence,  he  was  amused,  and  wrote  an  account  of  it  to 
his  mother. 

Mrs.  Buller  made  me  go  the  other  night  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  hear  Charles  speak  on  the  Scotch  Church  question.  The 
Scotch  Church  question  was  found  to  be  in  a  wrong  condition  as 
io  form,  and  could  not  come  on  till  the  5th  of  July.  It  struck  mo 
as  the  strangest  place  I  had  ever  sat  in,  that  same  house.  There 
was  a  humming  and  bustling,  so  that  you  could  hear  nothing  for 
the  most  part ;  the  members  all  sitting  with  their  hats  on  talking 
to  one  another,  coming  and  going.  You  only  saw  the  Speaker,  a 
man  in  an  immense  powdered  wig,  in  an  old-fashioned  elevated 
chair ;  and  half  heard  him  mumbling  '  Say  Aye,  Say  No.  The 
Ayes  have  it ; '  passing  Bills  which  nobody  except  one  or  two 


220  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

specially  concerned  cared  a  fig  about,  or  was  at  pains  to  listen  to. 
When  a  good  speaker  rose,  or  an  important  man,  they  grew  a  little 
more  silent,  and  you  could  hear.  Peel  was  there  and  on  his  feet. 
Poor  Peel !  he  is  really  a  clever-looking  man — large  substantial 
head,  Eoman  nose,  massive  cheeks  with  a  wrinkle,  half  smile,  half 
sorrow  on  them,  considerable  trunk  and  stomach,  sufficient  stub- 
born-looking short  legs  ;  altogether  an  honest  figure  of  a  man. 
He  had  a  dark-colored  surtout  on,  and  cotton  trousers  of  blue 
striped  jean.    A  curious  man  to  behold  under  the  summer  twilight. 

This  single  glance  into  the  legislative  sanctuary  satisfied 
Carlyle's  curiosity.  Once,  in  after  years,  on  some  invita- 
tion from  a  northern  borough,  he  did  for  a  few  moments 
contemplate  the  possibility  of  himself  belonging  to  it ;  but 
it  was  for  a  moment  only,  and  then  with  no  more  than  a 
purpose  of  telling  Parliament  his  opinion  of  its  merits. 
For  it  was  his  fixed  conviction  that  in  that  place  lay  not 
tlie  strength  of  England,  but  the  weakness  of  England, 
and  that  in  time  it  would  become  a  question  which  of  the 
two  would  strangle  the  life  out  of  the  other.  Of  the  de- 
bating department  in  the  management  of  the  affairs  of  this 
country  he  never  spoke  without  contempt.  In  the  adminis- 
tration of  them  there  was  still  vigour  inherited  through 
the  traditions  of  a  great  past,  and  kept  alive  in  the  spirit 
of  the  public  service.  The  navy  especially  continued  a 
reality.  Having  seen  the  House  of  Commons  and  tlie 
Anarchies,  he  was  next  to  have  a  sight  of  a  Queen's  ship 
on  a  small  scale,  and  of  naval  discipline. 

The  thing  came  about  in  this  way.  He  could  not  work 
in  the  hot  weather,  and  doubtless  lamented  as  loud  as 
usual  about  it.  Stephen  Spring  Bice,  Commissioner  of 
Customs,  was  going  in  an  Admiralty  yacht  to  Ostend  on 
public  business.  The  days  of  steam  were  not  yet.  The 
yacht,  a  cutter  of  the  largest  size,  was  lying  in  Margate 
roads.  Spring  Rice  and  his  younger  brother  were  to  join 
her  by  a  Thames  steamer  on.  August  5,  and  the  night  be- 
fore they^  invited  Carlyle  to  go  with  them.     Had  there 


Short  Tour  in  Belgium,  221 

been  time  to  consider,  lie  would  have  answered,  *  impossi- 
ble.' But  the  proposal  came  suddenly.  Mrs.  Carlyle, 
who  was  herself  going  to  Troston,  strongly  urged  its  ac- 
ceptance. The  expedition  was  not  to  occupy  more  than 
four  or  five  days.  Carlyle  was  always  well  at  sea.  In 
short,  he  agreed,  and  the  result  was  summed  up  in  a  nar- 
rative, written  in  his  very  best  style,  which  lie  termed 
*  The  Shortest  Tour  on  Record.'  He  was  well,  he  was  in 
good  humour ;  he  was  flung  suddenly  among  scenes  and 
people  entirely  new.  Of  all  men  whom  I  have  ever 
known,  he  had  the  greatest  power  of  taking  in  and  remem- 
bering the  minute  particulars  of  what  he  saw  and  heard, 
and  of  then  reproducing  them  in  language.  The  tour,  if 
one  of  the  shortest,  is  also  therefore  one  of  the  most  vivid. 
It  opens  with  an  account  of  the  run  down  the  river,  the 
steamer,  the  passengers,  llerrie  Bay,  Margate,  &c.  The 
yacht  was  waiting  at  anchor  with  her  long  pennon  flying. 
As  the  steamer  stopped  the  yacht's  galley  came  alongside. 
Tlie  Spring  Hices  and  Carlyle  stepped  into  it  and  were 
rowed  on  board,  and  he  made  his  first  experience  of  an 
English  cruiser,  of  a  type  which  is  now  extinct. 

The  cutter  'Vigilant,' which  rocked  here  upon  the  waters,  is  a 
smart  little  trim  ship  of  some  250  tons,  rigged,  fitted,  kept  and 
navigated  in  the  highest  style  of  English  seacraft ;  made  every 
way  for  sailing  fast,  that  she  may  catch  smugglers.  Outside  and 
inside,  in  furniture,  equipment,  action,  and  look,  she  seemed  a 
model — clean  all  as  a  lady's  workbox. 

The  party  dined  on  board.  They  were  not  to  sail  till 
the  morning  tide.  The  lights  of  Margate  looked  inviting 
in  the  height  of  its  season,  and  they  went  on  shore  to 
stroll  about  and  look  at  the  sights.  Nor  look  at  them 
only,  for  they  were  tempted  into  the  ball-room,  when  the 
Master  of  Ceremonies  came  instantly  with  offers  of  fair 
partners.  Cai-lyle  looked  on  grimly  ;  but  Stephen  Spring 
Eice  wliirled  away  into  waltzes,  quadrilles,  couutry-dauces 


222  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

— not  to  be  moved  from  the  place  till  the  rooms  were  to 
be  closed.  '  Auld  Robin  Gray '  was  sung  as  a  finale  by  '  a 
very  ill-looking  woman.'  It  was  by  this  time  midnight. 
They  went  back  to  the  yacht  and  turned  in.  The  anchor 
was  up  shortly  after,  and  before  dawn  they  were  far  on 
their  way.'  '  My  sleep,'  Carljde  says,  '  was  a  sleep  as  of 
hospitals,  of  men  in  a  state  of  asphyxia,  a  confused  tumult, 
a  shifting  from  headache  to  headache.'  After  three  hours 
he  gave  it  up  and  w^ent  on  deck,  when  he  found  the  cutter 
flying  thi'ough  the  water.  By  breakfast  they  had  run 
down  the  land — by  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  they  w^ere 
off  Ostend.  Even  now  such  vessels  as  the  'Yigilant,' 
with  a  stiff  breeze,  can  hold  their  own  with  a  swift  screw 
steamer,  while  they  have  the  advantage  infinitely  in  com- 
fort and  cleanliness. 

Ostend  itself,  with  its  harbour,  its  Douane,  streets,  ram- 
parts, hotels,  shop-boys  and  shop-girls,  is  described  at 
length  and  very  humorously.  I  select  a  single  incident 
only.  They  landed  in  the  morning,  and  wandered  about 
the  town.  They  w^ere  to  go  on  by  train  to  Bruges  after  a 
midday  dinner.  The  w^eather  w^as  hot.  The  Spring 
Bices  were  busy  sight-seeing.  Carlyle  thought  he  would 
prefer  a  bathe,  and  forgot,  or  did  not  know,  the  regula- 
tions.    He  must  liimself  tell  what  befell  him. 

I  passed  over  an  impaved  part  of  the  height,  and  soon  sloped 
down  to  the  sand  beach  where  the  machines  stood  ;  where  some 
score  of  ragged  women  sat  sorting  and  freshening  the  salt  towels, 
some  cheering  themselves  with  a  loud  song  the  while  ;  when  di- 
rectly a  freckled  figure,  with  tow  hair,  barefoot  and  in  blue  blouse, 
volunteered  in  some  kind  of  patois  to  do  the  bathing,  and  straight- 
way showed  me  into  his  machine  and  shut  the  door. 

I  was  stripped  and  ready  by  the  time  the  blue-blouse's  quad- 
ruped, one  of  the  wretchedest  garrons  now  alive,  came  to  drag  me 
in.  I  was  dragged  in  nevertheless.  I  opened  my  door  and 
plunged  forward  to  one  of  the  most  delicious  tepid  sea  baths, 
though  as  yet  somewhat  shallow.     Alas  !  I  made  only  some  three 


Bnigea,  223 

plnnges  and  a  stroke  or  two  of  swimming,  when  the  bine  blonse, 
in  a  state  not  far  from  distraction,  came  riding  into  the  waves  after 
m'e,  vociferating  with  uplifted  hand  I  knew  not  what.  Wow  I 
Gow  !  Wow  !  Nay  at  leqgth  something  like  Police  !  Wow  !  Gow  ! 
and  evidently  expressing  the  intensest  desire  that  I  should  como 
out  of  the  water  again.  Clearly  I  had  no  alternative,  with  a  man 
in  blue  blouse  mounted  in  that  manner.  On  entering  I  could  not 
but  burst  into  laughing,  I  found  that,  men  and  women,  we  wero 
all  bathing  here  in  a  heap,  and  that  among  my  apparatus  were  not 
only  two  huckaback  towels,  but  a  jacket  and  breeches  of  blue 
gingham,  which  I  decidedly  ought  to  have  put  on  first.  My 
three  plunges,  however,  were  enough,  highly  beneficial — and  no 
Police  Gow-wow,  as  it  chanced,  had  meddled  with  me. 

Dinner  followed,  and  then  the  railway  in  the  August 
afternoon  to  Bruges ;  Carljle  sketching  the  landscape  on 
his  memory  as  he  went. 

Sand  downs  and  stagnating  mai-shes,  producing  nothing  but 
heath,  but  sedges,  docks,  mai-sh-mallows,  and  miasmata — so  it  layby 
nature  ;  but  the  industry  of  man,  the  assiduous,  unwearied  motion 
of  how  many  sj^des,  pickaxes,  hammers,  wheel-barrows,  mason's 
trowels,  and  the  thousandfold  industrial  tools  have  made  it — this ! 
A  thing  that  will  gi'ow  gi-ass,  potherbs,  warehouses,  Rubens's  pic- 
tures, churches  and  cathedrals.  Long  before  Caesar's  time  of 
Bwords  the  era  of  spades  had  ushered  itself  in,  and  was  busy. 
Tools  and  the  Man  !  *  Arms  and  the  Man  '  is  but  a  small  song  in 
comparison.  Honour  to  you,  ye  long  forgotten  generations,  from 
whom  at  this  moment  we  have  our  bread  and  clothing !  Not  a 
delver  among  you  that  dug  out  one  shovelful  of  a  marsh  drain  but 
was  doing  us  a  good  turn. 

Bruges  in  the  thirteenth  century  had  become  the  *  Venice  of  the 
North,'  had  its  ships  on  every  sea.  The  most  important  city  in 
these  latitudes  was  founded  in  a  soil  which,  as  Coleridge,  with  a 
poor  sneer,  declares  was  not  of  God's  making,  but  of  man's.  All 
the  more  credit  to  man,  Mr.  Samuel  Taylor. 

The  eye,  Carlyle  often  says,  sees  only  what  it  brings 
with  it  the  means  of  seeing.  The  ordinary  London  trav- 
eller on  the  road  between  Ostend  and  Bruges  perceives  a 
country  finely  cultivated.  He  is  pleased  to  approve  ;  ob- 
serves that  these  foreigners  are  not  so  backward  as  might 


224  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

have  been  expected,  and  that  is  all ;  Carlyle  saw  all  that, 
and  saw  all  that  lay  behind  it — a  miracle  of  hnman  indus- 
try, two  millenniums  of  human  history. 

As  they  walked  from  the  station  through  the  streets  of 
that  strange  old  city,  they  were  themselves  objects  of  ad- 
miration to  the  inhabitants.     He  goes  on : — 

The  Captain  ^  and  I  had  a  rational  English  costume,  different, 
vet  not  greatly  different,  from  theirs  ;  but  the  costume  of  our  two 
brethren  did  seem  to  myself  astonishing  ;  the  Home  Commissioner 
in  a  pair  of  coarsest  blue  shag  trousers,  with  a  horrible  blue  shag 
spencer  without  waistcoat,  and  a  scanty  blue  cap  on  his  head,  had 
a  ti'vdjjiibustie)'  air.  The  good  Charles  had  a  low-crowned,  broad- 
brimmed  glazed  hat,  ugliest  of  hats,  and  one  of  those  amazing  sack 
coats  which  the  English  dandies  have  taken  to  wear,  the  make  of 
which  is  the  simplest.  One  straight  sack  to  hold  your  body,  two 
smaller  sacks  on  top  for  the  arms,  and  by  way  of  a  collar  a  hem. 
The  earliest  tailor  on  the  earth  would  make  his  coat  even  so  ;  and 
the  Bond  Street  snip  has  returned  to  that  as  elegance.  Oh,  in- 
effable snip  of  Bond  Street,  what  a  thing  art  thou ! 

In  tlie  Market-place  they  passed  an  authentic  ^  Tree  of 
Liberty,'  which  had  been  planted  in  1794,  and  was  still 
growing.  Carlyle  patted  it  with  his  hand  as  they  went  by. 
He  admired  greatly  the  quaint  old  buildings,  the  pretty 
women  neatly  dressed.  Among  the  children  he  emptied 
his  pockets  of  his  loose  money.  The  door  of  a  magnificent 
church  stood  open.     They  entered  in  the  evening  light. 

Few  things  (he  says)  which  I  have  seen  were  more  impressive. 
Enormous  high  arched  roofs — I  suppose,  not  higher  than  West- 
minster Abbey,  but  far  more  striking  to  me,  for  they  were  actually 
in  use  here — soaring  to  a  height  that  dwarfed  all  else  ;  great  high 
altar-pieces  with  sculpture,  wooden  carvings  hanging  in  mid-air, 
pillars,  balustrades  of  white  marble  edged  with  black  marble,  pic- 
tures, inscriptions,  bronze  gates  of  chapels,  shrines  and  votive 
tablets  ;  above  all,  actual  human  creatures  bent  in  devotion  there, 
counting  their  beads  with  open  eyes,  or  as  in  still  deeper  prayer, 
covered  by  their  black  scarfs — for  they  were  mostly  women — and 

*  The  captian  of  the  yacht,  who  had  accompanied  them. 


Church  at  Bruges.  225 

only  their  little  iwinted  shoe  soles  distinct  to  you  ;  all  this  with 
the  yellow  evening  sunlight  falling  down  over  and  beneath  the  new 
and  ancient  tombs  of  the  dead ;  it  struck  me  dumb,  and  I  cared 
nothing  for  Rubens  or  Vandyck  canvases  wliile  this  living  painted 
canvas  hung  hero  before  me  on  the  bosom  of  eternity.  The  Mass 
was  over,  but  these  worshipi^ers,  it  seemed,  still  loitered.  You 
could  not  say  from  their  air  that  they  were  without  devotion — yet 
they  were  jiainful  to  mo.  The  fat  priests,  in  whose  real  sincerity, 
not  in  whose  sincere  cant,  I  had  more  difficulty  in  believing,  were 
worse  than  painful.  I  had  a  kind  of  hatred  of  them,  a  desire  to 
kick  them  into  the  canals  unless  they  ceased  their  fooling. 

Things  are  long-lived,  and  God  above  appoints  their  term.  Yet 
when  the  brains  of  a  thing  have  been  out  for  three  centuiies  and 
odd,  one  does  wish  that  it  would  be  kind  enough  to  die.  The 
tonsures  of  these  priests,  I  observed,  were  very  small,  not  bigger 
than  a  good  crown-piece  of  English  coin.  They  wore  on  the 
streets  a  horrid  three-cornered  shovel  for  hat,  a  black  serge  or 
cloth  pelisse,  exactly  like  a  woman's,  some  sasheries  about  their 
nasty  thick  waists,  and  a  narrow  scarf  of  black  silk — about  a  tiiple 
ribbon  of  silk — hanging  down  right  behind  from  their  haunches, 
sometimes  from  the  very  neck — oftenest  veiy  ugly  men,  and  far 
'too  fat.  At  bottom  one  cannot  wish  these  men  kicked  into  the 
canals,  for  what  would  follow  were  they  gone  ?  Atheistic  Bent- 
hamism, French  Editorial  'rights  of  man,' and  *  Grande  Nation.' 
That  is  a  far  worse  thing,  a  far  untruer  thing.  God  pity  the  gen- 
eration in  which  you  have  to  see  deluded  and  deluding  simulacra, 
Tartuffes  and  semi-Tartuflfes,  and  to  stay  the  uplifted  foot,  and  not 
kick  them  into  the  canal,  but  go  away  near  weeping  in  silence — 
alone — alone  ! 

He  often  ferociously  insisted  that  he  knew  nothinjsj 
about  the  fine  arts,  and  wished  to  know  nothing.  His 
abhorrence  of  cant  was  particularly  active  in  this  depart- 
ment; aware  as  he  was  that  nine-tenths  of  those  who 
talked  most  fluently  about  it  were  talking  mere  words. 
But  he  had  as  good  an  eye  as  any  man,  and  could  admire 
wisely  what  deserved  to  be  admired. 

In  the  second  church  we  entered  there  was,  among  much  else 
of  the  sort,   a  marble  Mother  and  Child,   by  Michael  Angelo ; 
probably  the  most   impressive  piece  of  sculpture  I  ever  saw. 
Vol.  III.— 16 


226  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

Michael  Angelo  had  made  it  for  some  Italian  church.  On  its 
Ijassage,  in  the  Mediterranean,  it  was  captured  by  some  Flemish 
sea-king  and  given  to  this  church,  where  it  stands  in  perfect 
preservation,  and  may  long  stand.  The  treatment  of  the  eyes  is 
singular,  the  lids  as  if  half  shut — Angelo's  way  of  meeting  the 
difficulty  of  stone  eyes.  The  sculptural  finish,  I  suppose,  is  jper- 
fect,  or  the  nearest  perfection  man  has  yet  reached.  The  skin 
glistens  sleek,  waves  with  a  softness  as  of  very  skin.  The  air  of 
the  mother's  face  has  something  of  Eachael  the  actress  :  narrow, 
Jewish,  though  not  quite  so  narrow  and  Jewish  ;  bending,  with  an 
air  of  soiTow,  of  infinite  earnestness,  over  her  little  boy,  who  stands 
before  her  supported  by  her.  The  boy's  face  stmck  me  not  less  ; 
a  soft,  child's  face,  yet  with  a  pride  in  it,  with  a  noble  courage  in 
it,  as  of  a  young  lion.  There  is  a  child  hand,  and  a  mother's 
hand,  which  I  suppose  it  might  be  difficult  to  match. 

The  travellers'  time  was  short,  and  tliere  was  much  to 
do  in  it.  The  afternoon  and  evening  were  allowed  to 
Bruges.  At  dusk  they  proceeded  bj  railw^aj  to  Ghent, 
where  they  proposed  to  sleep  at  the  Hotel  de  Flandre. 
But,  for  one  of  them,  to  propose  was  easier  than  to  exe- 
cute. The  night  was  sultrj^  The  open  window  of  Car- 
lyle's  bed-room  looked  into  a  courtyard  with  its  miscel- 
laneous noises ;  and  at  four  o'clock,  with  day  breaking 
and  the  churcli  bells  bursting  out,  he  grew  desperate  and 
got  up.     He  exclaims : — 

How  the  ear  of  man  is  tortured  in  this  terrestrial  planet !  Go 
where  you  will,  the  cock's  shrill  clarion,  the  dog's  harsh  watch 
note,  not  to  speak  of  the  melody  of  jackasses,  and  on  streets,  of 
wheel-barrows,  wooden  clogs,  loud-voiced  men,  perhaps  watch- 
men, break  upon  the  hapless  brain ;  and,  as  if  all  was  not  enough, 
'  the  Piety  of  the  Middle  Ages  '  has  founded  tremendous  bells  ; 
and  the  hollow  triviality  of  the  present  age — far  worse — has  every- 
where instituted  the  piano  !  Why  are  not  at  least  all  those  cocks 
and  cockerils  boiled  into  soup,  into  everlasting  silence  ?  Or,  if 
the  Devil  some  good  night  should  take  his  hammer  and  smite  in 
shivers  all  and  every  piano  of  our  European  world,  so  that  in 
broad  Europe  there  were  not  one  piano  left  soundable,  would  the 
harm  be  great  ?  Would  not,  on  the  contrary,  the  relief  be  con- 
siderable ?    For  once  that  you  hear  any  real  music  from  a  piano, 


Ilotel  at  Ghent.  227 

do  you  not  five  hundred  times  hear  mere  artistic  somersets,  dis- 
tracted jangling,  and  the  hapless  pretence  of  music?  Let  him 
that  has  lodged  wall  neighbour  to  an  operatic  artist  of  stringed 
music  say. 

This  miserable  young  woman  that  now  in  tlie  next  house  to  me 
spends  all  her  young,  bright  days,  not  in  learnimg  to  dam  stock- 
ings, sew  shirts,  bake  pastry,  or  any  art,  mystery,  or  business  that 
will  profit  herself  or  othoi-s  ;  not  even  in  amusing  herself  or  skip- 
ping on  the  gi-assplots  with  laughter  of  her  mates ;  but  simply 
and  solely  in  mging  from  dawn  to  dusk,  to  night  and  midnight, 
on  a  hapless  piano,  which  it  is  evident  she  will  never  in  this  world 
learn  to  render  more  musical  than  a  pair  of  barn-fanners !  The 
miserable  young  female  !  The  sound  of  her  through  the  wall  is 
to  me  an  emblem  of  the  whole  distracted  misery  of  this  age  ;  and 
her  barn-fanners'  rhythm  becomes  all  too  significant. 

So  meditated  Carljle,  as  he  sat  smoking  at  tlie  windoNv 
of  liis  room  in  the  Hotel  de  Flandre  at  Ghent,  and  watcli- 
ing  the  dawn  spread  over  the  chimney-pots.  An  omnibns 
rolled  slowly  out  of  the  gate  of  the  yard ;  an  old  ostler 
sat  mending  a  saddle  on  a  bench.  The  bedroom  windows 
all  round  the  court  were  wide  open,  through  which  might 
be  seen  the  usual  litter,  and  in  one  instance  for  a  moment 
a  prett}'  young  lady  in  a  dressing-gown.  He  tried  to  sleep 
again  when  his  pipe  and  his  reflections  were  done,  and 
had  half  succeeded  when  the  great  bell  of  St.  Michael's 
boomed  out  close  by,  and  threw  him  broad  awake  again, 
thinking  how  perhaps  Philip  Van  Artevelde  had  listened 
to  that  very  same  bell ;  and  how  the  pealing  of  it  was, 
perhaps,  the  first  sound  that  had  struck  the  ear  of  the  in- 
fant who  was  afterwards  Charles  Y. 

After  breakfast  the  party  separated  on  their  vaiious  er- 
rands, having  fixed  on  a  spot  where  they  were  to  meet  in 
the  course  of  the  forenoon.  The  rendezvous  was  unsuc- 
cessful ;  and  Carlyle,  not  sorry  to  escape  from  picture  gal- 
leries, passed  his  morning  alone,  wandering-about  the  city, 
looking  at  the  people,  and  straying  into  an  occasional 
church.     At  the  Cathedral  he  says : — 


228  Carlyleh  Life  in  London, 

I  found  a  large  squadron  of  priests  and  singers  busy  chanting 
Mass — a  Mass  for  the  dead,  I  understood.  The  sound  of  them 
was  as  a  loud,  not  unmelodious  bray  in  various  notes  of  the  gamut, 
from  clamorous,  eager  sound  of  petitioning,  down  to  the  depths 
of  bass  resignation,  awe,  or  acquiescence,  which,  reverberating 
from  the  vast  roof  and  walls,  was,  or  might  at  one  time  have  been, 
a  very  appropriate  thing.  I  grudge  terribly  to  listen  to  any  '  office 
for  the  dead  'as  to  a  piece  of  an  opera.  The  priests  while  I  was 
there  took  their  departure,  *  filthy  hallions,'  by  a  side  passage, 
each  with  a  small  bow  towards  the  altar,  and  left  the  rest  of  the 
affair  to  an  efifective  enough  squadron  of  singers  and  trumpet  or 
bassoon  men,  who  were  seated  gravely  at  work  in  their  wooden 
pews  in  the  choir.  Aloft  and  around,  as  I  perambulated  the  aisles, 
where  some  few  poor  people  seemed  faintly  joining  in  the  busi- 
ness, the  view  was  magnificent.  The  noisy,  hoarse  growling  of 
the  Mass,  roaring  through  these  time-honoured  spaces,  and  still 
calling  itself  worship  !  Acli  Gott!  Turner  says,  the  Lama  Liturgy 
in  Thibet,  which  often  goes  on  all  night,  is  likewise  distinguished 
for  its  neise  ;  harsh,  but  deep,  mournfully  oppressive,  and  reminds 
you  of  the  Mass. 

In  an  outer  corner  of  this  Cathedral,  opening  from  a  solitary 
street  in  the  rear,  I  found  a  little  chapel  with  an  old  Gothic-arch 
door,  which  stood  open.  Approaching,  I  found  it  a  little  closet  of 
a  place,  perhaps  some  ten  feet  square  and  fifteen  high.  In  the 
wall  right  opposite  the  entrance  was  a  little  niche,  dizened  round 
with  curtains,  laces,  votive  tablet  of  teeth,  &c. ;  at  the  side  of  it, 
within  this  niche,  sate  a  dizened  paltry  doll,  some  three  feet  long, 
done  with  paint,  ribbons,  and  ruffles.  This  was  the  Mother  of 
God.  On  the  left  of  it  lay  a  much  smaller  doll  (literally,  they 
were  dolls  such  as  children  have).  This  was  itself  God.  Good 
heavens !  Oh,  ancient  earth  and  sky !  Before  this  pair  of  dolls 
sate,  in  very  deed,  some  half-dozen  women,  not  of  the  lowest  class, 
some  of  them  with  young  children,  busy  counting  their  beads,  ap- 
plying themselves  to  prayer.  I  gazed  speechless — not  in  anger. 
An  aged  woman  in  decent  black  hood,  perhaps  a  man,  sate  in  a 
little  sentry-box  in  the  corner,  looking  on  through  a  small  window, 
silently  superintending  the  place.  They  bowed  to  her  before  going 
out  when  their  devotions  were  done.  While  I  stood  here  for  a 
moment  there  entered  a  stunted  crooked-looking  man,  of  the  most 
toilworn  down-pressed  aspect,  though  still  below  middle  age.  He 
had  the  coarse  sabots,  leathern  straps  on  him,  like  a  chairman  or 


Maiming   Walk  in  Ghent.     *  229 

porter ;  his  bands  hard,  crooked,  black,  the  nails  nearly  all  gone, 
hardly  the  eighth  of  an  inch  of  nail  belonging  to  each  finger — 
fruit  of  sore  labour  all  his  days  and  all  his  father's  days,  the  most 
perfect  image  of  a  poor  drudge.  He,  poor  dnidge  !  put  two  of  his 
horny  fingers  into  the  holy  water,  dabbed  it  on  his  brow,  and, 
folding  the  black  horn  hands,  sank  on  both  his  knees  to  pray. 
The  low  black  head  and  small  brow,  nailless  fingers,  face  and  as- 
pect like  the  poorest  Irishman,  praying  to  the  two  dolls  there ! 
You  had  to  stand  speechless.  Uhomme  est  absurde.  At  the  door 
sate  squatted  a  poor  beggar  woman,  to  whom  I  gave  my  sou  and 
walked  off. 

Strolling  aimlessly  on,  lie  next  found  himself  in  a  street 
on  the  north  side  of  the  city,  which  reminded  him  of  Eng- 
land, It  was  inhabited  by  a  population' '  equal  in  wretch- 
edness to  the  worst  of  a  British  large  town,'  squalid, 
hungr}',  hopeless,  miserable.  Yet,  even  there,  human 
grace  was  not  wholly  absent.  The  next  passage  is  like  a 
page  from  the  '  Sentimental  Journey  :  ' — 

One  clean  house,  and  perhaps  only  one,  I  noticed  in  the  street. 
An  elderly,  or  rather  oldiah  young,  woman  sat  working  lace  here 
with  her  green  pillow  and  pattern  marked  on  it  with  many  pins, 
which  she  shifted  according  to  need,  and  some  fifty  or  sixty  slim 
little  thread  bobbins,  which  she  kept  dancing  hither  and  thither 
round  and  among  the  said  pins  on  her  pattern  figure  with  aston- 
ishing celerity.  '  Kan  nit  verstahn,^  answered  she,  when  I  said 
•  Dentelle.'  Her  messin  dog  barked,  but  was  rebuked  by  her,  and 
she  seemed  to  hke  that  I  should  watch  her  a  little.  Poor  *  oldish- 
young  girl ! '  I  could  see  how  it  was  with  her.  She  had  missed 
L-etting  married  :  perhaps  iby  '  misfortune  ; '  and  now  retreated  to 
this  small  shelter,  which,  and  all  in  it,  she  kept  clean  as  a  new 
penny.  She  was  to  plait  lace  for  the  rest  of  her  time  in  this  world. 
I  laid  a  half-franc  on  her  pillow,  and  went  pensively  my  way. 

Carlyle's  grimly  tender  face  and  figure  with  this  poor 
Ghent  lace-girl  would  make  a  pretty  picture,  if  any  artist 
cared  to  draw  it.  Perhaps  the  next  scene  would  be  even 
better : — 

Aloft,  at  the  north-west  extremity,  stands  the  Abbaye  de  St. 
PierrSf  part  of  it  still  a  church,  the  rest  of  it  still  a  barracks  and 


230  *     Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

au  elevated  esplanade.  An  accurate-looking  steel-grey  man,  whom 
I  spoke  to  here,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries,  informed  me  that  he 
was  an  ancien  militaire  (poor  Belgian  half-pay  lieutenant,  I  sup- 
pose), and  had  fought  against  us  English  and  the  Duke  of  York 
in  1793.  '  Vous  I'avez  bien  battu,'  I  answered  ;  'et  enfin  c'est  ce 
qu'il  a  merite.  II  n'avait  que  rester  chez  lui  alors,  je  pense.' 
The  steel-grey  man  squeezed  my  hand  at  parting.  Poor  ancien 
momie  militaire  !  Precisely  where  the  town  ended,  in  the  rear  of  a 
brown  cottage,  stood  a  young  woman,  dabble  dabbling  with  linens 
in  a  wash-tub.  Conquering  heroes  perambulate  the  world  where 
so  much  is  going  on,  and  this  is  thy  share  in  its  history.  Good- 
bye to  thee,  my  girl,  and  see  thou  do  thy  washing  honestly.  It 
will  then  be  well  with  thee,  and  better  than  with  most  qupck  ego- 
ists, never  so  conquering. 

He  made  his  way  back,  looking  for  his  friends,  to  the 
centre  of  the  city. 

Soon  after  noon,  the  working  people,  generally  in  cleanish 
blouses,  came  along  the  street  I  was  in,  for  dinner.  Cotton  peo- 
ple, I  supposed.  About  a  half  were  women,  also  very  clean  and 
decent-looking.  I  sate  down  amidst  the  trees  in  the  chief  square, 
called  Place  c?'u4?'wes,  where  now,  also,  labourers  were  sitting  at 
dinner.  Their  wives  or  some  little  boy  had  brought  it  out  to 
them.  In  all  cases  it  appeared  to  consist  of  two  parts — a  coarse 
brown  jug  containing  liquor,  soup,  oftenest  beer,  or  skimmed 
milk,  flanked  by  a  slice  or  two  of  black  rye  bread.  This  formed 
the  outflank  of  the  repast.  The  main  battle  was  a  coarse  brown 
stewpan  of  glazed  crockery,  narrower  at  the  top,  like  a  kind  of 
small  rude  hemisphere  of  a  dish,  which  uniformly  contained  po- 
tatoes stewed  with  bits  of  broken  coarse  meal,  all  in  a  moist  state, 
eaten  ravenously  with  a  pewter  fork.  The  dishes,  I  judged,  had 
all  been  cooked  in  some  common  oven  for  a  sou  or  so  each. 
The  good  wife  had  sate  by  in  a  composed  sorrowfully  satisfied  way 
seeing  her  good  man  eat.  What  he  left,  before  taking  to  the  li- 
quor jug,  he  carelessly  handed  her,  and  she  ate  it  with  much  more 
neatness,  though  also  willingly  enough.  Good  motherkin  !  But 
the  appetite  of  the  male  sex  was  something  great.  A  man  not  far 
from  me,  a  weak-built  figure,  almost  icithotit  chin,  shovelled  and 
forked  with  astonishing  alacrity  out  of  his  stewpan,  his  protrusive 
eyes  flashing  all  the  while,  and  his  loose  eyebrows  shuttling  and 
jerking  at  every  stroke,  the  whole  face  of  him  a  devouring  Chi- 


Ghent  Artiscma.  281 

msera.  He  gave  the  remnant — a  small  one,  I  doubt — to  his  boy, 
snatched  up  the  black  bread,  and  made  a  cut  in  it  at  the  first  bite 
equal  to  a  moderate  horse-shoe.  Poor  fellows  !  They  all  mped 
their  mouths,  I  could  see,  with  some  kind  of  dim  cotton  hander- 
chief,  dmwn  from  their  blouses  for  that  end.  They  tumbled 
themselves  down  for  half  an  hour  of  deepest  ambrosial  sleej). 

The  cafes,  the  chibs,  the  fine  houses,  the  west  end  of 
Ghent  with  its  fashionable  occupants,  are  described  not 
unkindly,  but  as  of  inferior  interest  to  the  working  people. 
All  that  may  be  passed  over,  and  indeed  the  rest  of  the 
adventures,  for  little  remains  to  tell. 

He  and  his  friends,  who  had  spent  their  day  in  the 
picture  galleries,  met  duly  at  the  tabU-d^hote  dinner.  At 
five  in  the  evening  they  were  in  the  train,  and  at  midnight 
in  their  berths  on  board  their  yacht,  running  out  into  the 
North  Sea.  The  wind  fell  in  the  morning,  and  they  wei*e 
becalmed.  They  sighted  the  North  Foreland  before  night, 
but  the  air  was  still  light ;  and  it  was  not  till  the  next 
day  that  they  were  fairly  in  the  river.  Then  a  rattling 
breeze  sprang  up,  and  the  '  Yigilant,'  with  her  vast  main- 
sail, her  vast  balloon  jib,  with  all  the  canvas  set  which 
she  could  carry,  flew  through  the  water,  passing  sailing 
vessels,  passing  steamers,  passing  everything.  They  car- 
Tied  on  as  if  they  were  entered  for  a  racing  cup.  The 
jib,  of  too  light  material  for  such  hard  driving,  split  with 
a  report  like  a  cannon.  Carlyle  saw  '  the  Captain's  eyes 
twinkle  ;  no  other  change.'  In  ten  minutes  the  flying 
wreck  was  gathered  in,  another  jib  was  set  and  standing 
in  place  of  it,  and  the  yacht  sped  on  as  before.  *  To  see 
men  so  perfect  in  their  craft,  fit  for  their  work,  and  fitly 
ordered  to  it,'  was  a  real  consolation  to  him.  There  was 
something  still  left  in  the  public  service  of  England  which 
had  survived  Parliamentary  eloquence.  They  anchored 
at  Deptford,  and  the  gig  was  lowered  to  take  the  party  up 
to  London. 


232  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

Five  rowers  with  a  boatswain  ;  men  unsurpassable,  I  do  not 
doubt,  in  boat  navigation,  strong  tall  men,  all  clean  shaved, 
clean  washed,  in  clean  blue  trousers,  in  massive  clean  check  shirts, 
their  black  neckcloths  tied  round  their  waists,  their  large  clean 
brown  hands,  cunning  in  the  craft  of  the  sea — it  was  a  kind  of  joy 
to  look  at  it  all.  In  few  minutes  they  shot  us  into  the  Custom 
House  stairs,  and  here,  waving  our  mild  farewells,  our  travel's  his- 
tory concluded.  Thus  had  kind  destiny  projected  us  rocket-wise 
for  a  little  space  into  the  clear  blue  of  heaven  and  freedom.  Thus 
again  were  we  swiftly  reabsorbed  into  the  great  smoky,  simmering 
crater,  and  London's  soot  volcano  had  again  recovered  us. 

His  wife  was  still  at  Cheyne  Row  when  he  came  back. 
The  day  after— August  10 — she  went  off  on  the  promised 
visit  to  the  Bullers  at  Troston,  of  which  she  gives  an  ac- 
count so  humorous  in  the  '  Letters  and  Memoi-ials.'  Her 
husband  stayed  behind  with  a  half  purpose  of  following 
her  at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  occupied  himself  in 
writing  down  the  story  of  his  flight  into  the  other  world, 
the  lightest  and  brightest  of  all  tourist  diaries.  He  gave 
Ave  days  to  it,  seeing  few  visitors  in  his  wife's  absence. 
One  new  acquaintance,  however,  he  did  make  in  those 
days,  or,  rather,  one  was  offered  for  acceptance,  which  he 
always  afterwards  counted  among  his  good  possessions. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  at  Troston. 

Chelsea  :  Friday,  August  20,  1842. 
The  day  before  yesterday,  in  the  evening,  I  had  fallen  asleep  on 
the  sofa  :  a  loud  door-knock  woke  me  ;  in  the  twilight,  the  tea 
standing  on  the  table,  a  man  entered  in  white  trousers,  whom 
Helen  (not  the  servant)  named — CEdipus  knows  what !  some  mere 
mumble.  In  my  dim  condition  I  took  him  for  Mackintosh  :  '  he 
was  empowered  to  call  on  me  by  Miss  Fox,  of  Falmouth.'  He  got 
seated  ;  disclosed  himself  as  a  man  of  huge,  coarse  head,  with  pro- 
jecting brow  and  chin,  like  a  cheese  in  the  last  quarter,  with  a  pair 
of  large  protrusive  glittering  eyes,  which  he  did  not  direct  to  me 
or  to  anybody,  but  sate  staring  into  the  blue  vague.  There  he  sate 
and  talked  in  a  copious  but  altogether  vague  way,  like  a  man  lect- 


A  New  Acquaintance.  233 

uring,  like  a  man  homed,  embarrassed,  and  not  knowing  well  what 
to  do.  I  thought  with  myself,  *  Good  heavens  !  can  this  be  some 
vagmnt  Yankee,  lion-hunting  insipidity,  biped  perhaps  escaped 
from  Bedlam,  coming  in  upon  me  by  stealth  ? '  He  talked  a  minute 
longer.  He  proved  to  be  Owen,  the  geological  anatomist,  a  man 
of  real  faculty,  whom  I  had  wished  to  see.  My  recognition  of  him 
issued  in  peals  of  laughter,  and  I  got  two  hours  of  excellent  talk 
out  of  him — a  man  of  real  ability,  who  could  tell  me  innumerable 
things.  After  his  departure  I  asked  Helen  what  she  tad  called 
him.  *She  did  not  know;  but  was  quite  sure  it  was  his  right 
name,  at  any  rate.'  Wliat  an  assistant  this  little  damsel  would 
have  been  to  Adam  when  names  were  just  beginning  ! 

The  more  Carl^'le  tlioiight  of  Owen  the  better  he  liked 
liiiri,  and  the  more  grateful  he  felt  to  Miss  Fox  for  the  ac- 
quisition. Sterling  had  known  Owen  at  Falmouth,  where 
lie  had  been  on  a  visit  to  the  Foxes.  Carlyle  wrote  to  him 
about  it. 

To  John  Sterling, 

Chelsea :  August  29. 
Your  friend  Owen,  the  naturalist,  came  down  to  me  on^  evening, 
and  stayed  two  hours.  I  returned  his  call  yesterday  with  my 
brother,  and  went  over  his  museum.  He  is  a  man  of  real  talent 
and  worth,  an  extremely  rare  kind  of  man.  Hardly  twice  in  Lon- 
don have  I  met  with  any  articulate-speaking  biped  who  told  me  a 
thirtieth  part  so  many  things  I  knew  not  and  wanted  to  know.  It 
was  almost  like  to  m^ke  me  cry  to  hear  articulate  human  speech 
once  more  conveying  real  information  to  me,  not  dancing  on  airy 
tip-toes,  no  whence  and  no  whither,  as  the  manner  of  the  Cockney 
dialect  is.  God's  forgiveness  to  all  Cockney  '  men  of  wit ; '  they 
know  not  what  death  and  Gehenna  does  lurk  in  that  laborious  in- 
anity of  theirs — inane  speech,  the  pretence  of  saying  something 
when  you  are  really  saying  No  xmNO,  but  only  counterfeits  of 
things,  is  the  beginning  and  basis  of  all  other  inanities  whatso- 
ever, wherewith  the  earth  and  England  is  now  sick  almost  unto 
death. 

lie  is  reproached  for  liaving  spoken  contemptuously  of 
contemporary  *  men  of  letters.'  His  contempt  was  only 
for  empty  men  of  letters,  the  beginning  and  end  of  whose 


234  Carlyle's  Life  m  London. 

occupation  was  blowing  bubbles  either  in  verse  or  prose. 
He  had  no  contempt  for  any  man  who  had  genuine  knowl- 
edge, nor  indeed  for  anybody  at  all  who  was  contented  to 
be  simple  and  without  pretence.  An  acquaintance  like 
Owen  made  life  itself  more  rich  to  him.  Two  days  later 
he  followed  his  wife  into  Suffolk.  Charles  Buller,  who  was 
to  have  met  him  at  Troston,  had  not  arrived,  and,  to  use 
the  time  profitably,  he  obtained  a  horse  of  the  completest 
Rosinante  species,  and  set  off  for  a  ride  through  Oliver 
Cromwell's  country.  His  first  halt  was  at  Ely.  lie  arrived 
in  the  evening,  and  walked  into  the  cathedral,  which,  though 
fresh  from  Bruges  and  Ghent,  he  called  '  one  of  the  most 
impressive  buildings  he  had  ever  in  his  life  seen.'  It  was 
empty  apparently.  Xo  living  thing  was  to  be  seen  in  the 
whole  vast  building  but  a  solitary  sparrow,  when  suddenly 
some  invisible  hand  touched  the  organ,  and  the  rolling 
sounds,  soft,  sweet,  and  solemn,  went  pealing,  through  the 
solitary  aisles.  He  was  greatly  affected.  He  had  come  to 
look  at  tiie  spot  where  Oliver  had  called  down  out  of  his 
reading-desk  a  refractory  High  Church  clergyman,  and  he 
had  encountered  a  scene  which  seemed  a  rebuke  to  his 
fierceness.  '  I  believe,'  he  said,  '  this  Ely  Cathedral  is  one 
of  the  finest,  as  they  call  it,  in  all  England  ;  and  from  me, 
also,  few  masses  of  architecture  could  win  more  admira- 
tion. But  I  recoil  everywhere  from  treating  these  things 
as  a  dilettantism  at  all.  The  impressions  they  give  me  are 
too  deep  and  sad  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  shape  of 
stones.  To-night,  as  the  heaving  bellows  blew,  and  the 
yellow  sunshine  streamed  in  through  those  high  windows, 
and  my  footfalls  w^ere  the  only  sounds  below,  I  looked 
aloft,  and  my  eyes  filled  with  tears  at  all  this,  and  I  re- 
membered beside  it — wedded  to  it  now  and  reconciled  to 
it  for  ever — Oliver  Cromwell's  "  Cease  your  fooling,  and 
come  out,  sir ! "  In  these  two  antagonisms  lie  what 
volumes  of  meaning  ! ' 


Hide  in  CroniweWs  Country.  286 

"Where  Carlyle  went  on  this  expedition,  and  what  he 
saw,  lie  described  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  John  when  it 
was  over. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Troston  :  September  9,  1842. 
My  grand  adventure  has  been  a  ride  of  three  days  into  Cromwell- 
dom,  which  I  actually  accomplished  on  my  heavy-footed  beast, 
with  endless  labour,  dispiritment,  and  annoyance,  but  also  with 
adequate  interest,  profit,  and  satisfaction  to  many  feelings.  I  went 
firet  to  Ely,  a  ride  of  thirty  miles,  most  of  it  lanes  and  cross-roads. 
At  length  the  high  Cathedral  of  Ely  rises  towering  on  a  hill-top 
over  an  immensity  of  cultivated  bog,  a  very  venerable-looking 
place.  I  then  by  some  industry  found  Oliver's  house.  The  huge 
hoi-seblock  at  his  door  is  still  lying  there ;  I  brought  away  •  a 
crumb  of  it  in  my  pocket.  The  bells  of  Ely  and  some  treacherous 
green  tea  &c.  kept  me  awake  near  all  night.  Next  day,  my  horse 
and  self  both  in  very  bad  case,  I  got  on  to  St.  Ives,  Oliver's  first 
farm,  sate  and  smoked  one  of  your  cigars  in  a  field  which  had  been 
his — very  curious  to  me.  The  traditions  about  him  in  that  region 
are  the  vaguest  conceivable — such  is  immortality  so  called.  I 
wonder  what  a  Pitt  or  a  Peel  will  amount  to  in  two  centuries  in 
comparison.  *  Immortality  ! '  as  my  father  would  have  said,  with 
one  of  his  sharpest  intonations.  After  two  hours  at  St.  Ives,  a 
little  place  of  some  three  thousand  people,  I  moved  off  to  Hunt- 
ingdon, Oliver's  birthplace  ;  saw  Hiuchinbrook,  which  was  his 
uncle's  house,  and  contains  some  excellent  portraits  of  Civil  War 
people  ;  dined  hastily,  and  rode  with  terrible  determination  to 
Cambridge  the  same  evening.  I  never  in  my  life  was  thii-stier  or 
wearier.  The  lightning  flashed  and  blazed  on  the  right  hand  of 
me  all  over  the  south  from  nightfall ;  and  about  an  hour  after  my 
arrival  (about  ten  o'clock,  that  is)  the  thunder  began  in  right  earn- 
est. Next  morning  I  looked  diligently  at  all  colleges  within 
reach  ;  saw  Oliver's  picture  in  his  Sidney-Sussex  College ;  got 
under  way  again  in  a  high  wind  which  became  tliick  driving  rain, 
and  about  five  I  arrived  here  sound  and  safe.  To-day,  of  course, 
I  am  in  a  very  baked,  hot,  feverish  condition. 

Cromwell  liad  been  Carlyle's  first  thought  in  this  riding 
expedition,  but  other  subjects,  as  1  have  said,  were  rising 


236  CmiyUs  Life  in  London. 

between  him  and  the  Commonwealth.  At  St.  Ives  he 
had  seen  and  noted  more  than  Cromwell's  farm.  He  had 
seen  St.  Ives  poorhouse,  and  the  paupers  sitting  enchanted 
in  the  sun,  willing  to  work,  but  with  no  work  provided  for 
them.  In  his  Journal  for  the  25th  of  October  he  men- 
tions that  he  has  been  reading  Eadmer,  and  Joceljn  de 
Brakelonde's  Chronicle,  and  been  meditating  on  the  old 
monks'  life  in  St.  Edmund's  monastery.  Round  these, 
as  an  incipient  motive,  another  book  was  shaping  itself  in 
his  mind,  and  making  '  Cromwell '  impossible  till  this 
should  be  done. 

To  Tliomas  Er shine,  Esq. 

Chelsea  :  October  22,  1842. 

I  wish  all  men  knew  and  saw  in  veiy  truth,  as  Emerson  does, 
the  everlasting  worth,  dignity,  and  blessedness  of  work.  We 
should  then  terminate  our  Fox-hunting,  Almacking,  Corn-lawing, 
and  a  variety  of  other  things  !  For  myself,  I  feel  daily  more  and 
more  what  a  truth  there  is  in  that  old  saying  of  the  monks,  Labo- 
rare  est  orare.  I  find  really  that  a  man  cannot  make  a  pair  of  shoes 
rightly  unless  he  do  it  in  a  devout  manner ;  that  no  man  is  ever 
paid  for  his  real  work,  or  should  ever  expect  or  demand  angrily  to 
be  paid  ;  that  all  work  properly  so  called  is  an  appeal  from  the 
Seen  to  the  Unseen — a  devout  calling  upon  Higher  Powers ;  and 
unless  they  stand  by  us,  it  will  not  be  a  work,  but  a  quackeiy. 

Perhaps  I  should  tell  you,  withal,  that  a  set  of  headlong  enthu- 
siasts have  already  risen  up  in  America  who,  grounding  themselves 
on  these  notions  of  Emerson,  decide  on  renouncing  the  world  and 
its  ways  somewhat  in  the  style  of  the  old  eremites  of  the  Thebaid  ; 
and  retire  into  remote  raral  places  to  dig  and  delve  with  their 
own  hands,  'to  live  according  to  Nature  and  Truth,'  and  for  one 
thing  eat  vegetables  only.  We  had  a  missionary  of  that  kind  here 
— a  man  of  sincere  convictions,  but  of  the  deepest  ignorance,  and 
calmly  ari'ogant  as  an  inspired  man  may  be  supposed  to  be — on  the 
whole,  one  of  the  intensest  bores  I  have  ever  met  with.  He  made 
no  proselytes  in  this  quarter ;  but  the  spiritual  state  of  New 
England  as  rendered  visible  through  him  was  very  strange  to 
me.     .     .     . 

I  had  three  days  of  a  riding  excursion  into  Oliver  Cromwell's 
country.     I  smoked  a  cigar  on  his  broken  horseblock  in  the  old 


'Past  aiid  PresenV  237 

city  of  Ely,  under  the  stars,  beside  the  graves  of  St.  Mai7's 
Churchyard.  I  almost  wept  to  stand  upon  the  veiy  flagstones 
under  the  setting  sun  where  he  ordered  the  refractory  parson, 
•  Leave  oflf  your  fooling,  and  coTue  out^  sir  ! '  Alas  !  he  too  !  was 
he  paid  for  his  work  ? 

Do  not  ask  me  whether  I  yet  wrUte  about  Oliver.  My  deep  and 
growing  feeling  is  that  it  is  impossible.  The  mighty  has  gone  to 
be  a  ghost,  and  will  never  take  body  again. 


CHAPTER  XL 

A.D.  1842-3.    ^T.  47—48. 

Slow  progress  with  *  Crc^mwell ' — Condition  of  England  question — 
*  Past  and  Present ' — The  Dismal  Science — Letter  from  Lock- 
hart— Effect  of  Carlyle's  writings  on  his  contemporaries— Young 
Oxford — Reviews — Visit  to  South  Wales — Mr.  Redwood's  visit 
to  the  Bishop  of  St.  David's — Impressions — An  inn  at  Glou- 
cester— Father  Mathew — Retreat  in  Annandale — Edinburgh 
— Dunbar  battle-field — Return  home. 

Journal. 

October  25,  1842. — For  many  months  there  has  been  no  writing 
here.  Alas  !  what  was  there  to  write  ?  About  myself,  nothing ;  or 
less  if  that  was  possible.  I  have  not  got  one  word  to  stand  upon 
paper  in  regard  to  Oliver.  The  beginnings  of  work  are  even  more 
formidable  than  the  executing  of  it.  I  seem  to  myself  at  present, 
and  for  a  long  while  past,  to  be  sunk  deep,  fifty  miles  deejD,  below 
the  region  of  articulation,  and,  if  I  ever  rise  to  speak  again,  must 
raise  whole  continents  with  me.  Some  hundreds  of  times  I  have 
felt,  and  scores  of  times  I  have  said  and  written,  that  Oliver  is  an 
impossibility ;  yet  I  am  still  found  at  it,  without  any  visible  results 
at  all.  Remorse,  too,  for  my  sinful,  disgraceful  sloth  accompanies 
me,  as  it  well  may.  I  am,  as  it  were,  without  a  language.  Tons 
of  dull  books  have  I  read  on  this  matter,  and  it  is  still  only  loom- 
ing as  through  thick  mists  on  my  eye.  There  looming,  or  flaming 
visible — did  it  ever  flame,  which  it  has  never  yet  been  made  to  do 
— in  what  terms  am  I  to  set  it  forth  ?  I  wish  often  I  could  write 
rhyme.  A  new  form  from  centre  to  surface,  unlike  what  I  find 
anywhere  in  myself  or  others,  wouM  alone  be  approj^riate  for  the 
indescribable  chiaroscuro  and  waste  bewilderment  of  this  subject. 

December  21. — The  Preadamite  powers  of  Chaos  are  in  me,  and- 
my  soul,  with  excess  of  stupidity,  pusillanimity,  tailor  melancholy, 
and  approaches  of  mere  desperation  and  dog-madness,  is  as  if  blotted 


^PoAit  and  VrenenV  239 

out.  Strange  to  reflect,  during  a  three  days'  rain,  when  all  is  mud 
and  misery  here  below,  that  a  few  miles  up  there  is  everlasting 
azure,  and  the  sun  shining  as  formerly.  No  Cromwell  will  ever 
come  out  of  me  in  this  world.     I  dare  not  even  try  Cromwell. 

Carlyle  was  to  try  Cromwell,  and  was  to  clothe  the  ghost 
with  body  again,  impossible  as  the  operation  seemed  ;  but 
he  had  to  raise  another  ghost  first — an  old  Catholic  ghost 
— before  he  could  practise  on  the  Puritans. 

Events  move  so  fast  in  this  century,  one  crowding  an- 
other out  of  sight,  that  most  of  us  who  were  alive  in  1842 
have  forgotten  how  menacing  public  affairs  were  looking 
in  the  autumn  of  that  year.  Trade  was  slack,  owing,  it 
was  said,  to  the  corn-laws,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
operatives  were  out  of  work.  Bread  was  dear,  owing  cer- 
tainly to  the  corn-laws,  and  actual  famine  was  in  the  north- 
ern towns ;  while  the  noble  lords  and  gentlemen  were 
shooting  their  grouse  as  usual.  There  was  no  insurrection, 
but  the  '  hands,'  unwillingly  idle,  gathered  in  the  streets  in 
dumb  protest.  Tlie  poorhouses  overflowed,  and  could  hold 
no  more  ;  local  riots  brought  out  the  yeomanry,  landowners 
and  farmers,  to  put  down  the  artisans,  who  were  short  of 
bread  for  their  families,  lest  foreign  competition  should 
bring  down  rents  and  farmers'  profits.  Town  and  country 
were  ranked  against  each  other  for  the  last  time.  Never 
any  more  was  such  a  scene  to  be  witnessed  in  England. 

In  his  Suffolk  ride  Carlyle  had  seen  similar  scenes  of 
misery.  Indignation  blazed  up  in  him  at  the  sight  of 
England  with  its  enormous  wealth  and  haggard  poverty  ; 
the  earth  would  not  endure  it,  he*  thought.  The  rage  of 
famished  millions,  held  in  check  only  by  the  invisible  re- 
straints of  habit  and  traditional  order,  would  boil  over  at 
last.  In  England,  as  in  France,  if  the  favored  classes  did 
not  look  better  to  their  ways,  revolution  would  and  must 
come ;  and  if  it  could  create  nothing,  might  at  least  shat- 
ter society  to  pieces.     His  *  Chartism '  had  been  road  and 


240  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

wondered  over,  but  liis  prophecies  had  been  laughed  at, 
and  the  symptoms  had  grown  worse.  The  corn-laws,  it 
is  to  be  remembered,  were  still  standing.  If  they  had 
continued  to  stand,  if  the  growl  of  the  hungry  people  had 
not  been  heard  and  the  meaning  of  it  discerned,  most  of  us 
think  that  revolution  would  have  come,  and  that  Carlyle's 
view  of  the  matter  was  right. 

Between  him  and  all  other  work,  dragging  off  his  mind 
from  it,  lay  this  condition  of  England  question.  Even  if 
the  dread  of  revolution  was  a  chimsera,  the  degradation 
of  the  once  great  English  people,  absorbed,  all  of  them,  in 
a  rage  for  gold  and  pleasure,  was  itself  sufficient  to  stir  his 
fury.  Pie  believed  that  every  man  had  a  special  duty  to 
do  in  this  world.  If  he  had  been  asked  what  specially  he 
conceived  his  own  duty  to  be,  he  would  have  said  that  it 
was  to  force  men  to  realize  once  moi*e  that  the  world  was 
actually  governed  by  a  just  God ;  that  the  old  familiar 
story  acknowledged  everywhere  in  words  on  Sundays,  and 
disregarded  or  denied  openly  on  week-days,  was,  after  all, 
true.  His  writings,  every  one  of  them,  his  essays,  his  lec- 
tures, his  'History  of  the  French  Revolution,'  his  '  Crom- 
well,' even  his  'Frederick,'  were  to  the  same  purpose  and 
on  the  same  text — that  truth  must  be  spoken  and  justice 
must  be  done  ;  on  any  other  conditions  no  real  common- 
wealth, no  common  welfare,  is  permitted  or  possible.  Po- 
litical economy  maintained  that  the  distribution  of  the 
profits  of  industry  depended  on  natural  laws,  with  whicli 
morality  had  nothing  to  do.  Carlyle  insisted  that  moral- 
ity was  everywhere,  through  the  whole  range  of  human 
action.  As  long  as  men  were  allowed  to  believe  that  their 
business  in  this  world  was  each  to  struggle  for  as  large  a 
share  as  he  could  get  of  earthly  good  things,  they  were 
living  in  a  delusion  with  hearts  poisoned  and  intellect 
misled.  Those  who  seemed  to  prosper  under  such  meth- 
ods, and  piled  up  huge  fortunes,  would  gather  no  good  out 


^Past  and  Present:  241 

of  them.  The  multitude  whose  own  toil  produced  what 
they  were  forbidden  to  share  would  sooner  or  later  present 
their  bill  for  payment,  and  demand  a  reckoning. 

The  scenes  in  the  north  of  England  in  this  summer — 
from  this  point  of  view — seemed  only  too  natural  to  him. 
On  August  20  he  wrote  to  his  wife  at  Troston  : — 

The  Manchester  insuiTection  continues — the  tenth  day  of  it 
now.  I  begin  really  to  be  anxious  about  it,  and  wish  it  were  well 
over,  that  blood  be  not  shed,  and  seeds  of  long  baleful  vengeance 
sown.  A  country  in  a  lamentabler  state,  to  my  eyes,  than  oui*s  even 
now,  has  rarely  shown  itself  under  the  sun.  We  seem  to  me  near 
anarchies,  things  nameless,  and  a  secret  voice  whispers  now  and 
then  to  me,  *  Thou,  behold  thou  too  art  of  it — thou  must  be  of  it ! ' 
I  declare  to  Heaven  I  would  not  have  the  governing  of  this  England 
at  present  for  the  richest  *  cream  and  shortbread '  that  could  be 
named. 

Men  say  that  he  was  an  idle  croaker,  and  that  events 
have  proved  it.  All  was  really  going  well.  The  bubbles 
on  the  surface  were  only  the  signs  of  the  depth  and  power 
of  the  stream.  There  has  been  no  revolution,  no  anarchy  ; 
wealth  has  enormously  increased ;  the  working  men  are 
better  off  than  ever  they  were,  &c.  &c. 

In  part,  yes.  But  how  much  has  been  done  meanwhile 
of  what  he  recommended  ?  and  how  much  of  that  is  due 
to  the  effect  which  he  himself  produced  ?  The  coni-laws 
have  been  repealed,  and  this  alone  he  said  at  the  time 
would  give  us  a  respite  of  thirty  years  to  set  our  house  in 
order.  Laissez-faire  has  been  broken  in  upon  by  factory 
acts,  education  acts,  land  acts,  emigration  schemes,  schemes 
and  acts  on  all  sides  of  us,  that  patience  and  industiy  may 
be  snatched  from  the  *  grinding'  of  *  natural  laws.'  The 
'  dismal  science '  has  been  relegated  to  '  Jupiter  and  Sat- 
urn ;'  and  these  efforts  have  served  as  lightning-conduct- 
ors. If  we  are  safe  now,  we  sliould  rather  thank  him 
who,  more  tlian  any  other  man,  forced  open  the  eyes  of 
our  legislators. 

Vol.  III. -16 


242  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

Forty  years  ago  people  were  saying  with  Jeffrey  that  it 
was  true  that  there  were  many  lies  in  the  world,  and  much 
injustice,  but  then  it  had  always  been  so.  Our  forefathers 
had  been  as  ill  off  as  we,  and  probably — nay,  certainly — 
worse  off.  Carlyle  had  insisted  that  no  nation  could  have 
grown  at  all,  still  less  have  grown  to  England's  stature, 
unless  truer  theories  of  man's  claims  on  man  had  once 
been  believed  and  acted  on.  Whigs  and  Kadicals  as- 
sured him  that  the  older  methods,  so  far  as  they  differed 
from  ours,  were  less  just  and  less  wise  ;  that,  although  the 
artisans  and  labourers  might  be  ill  off  occasionally,  they 
were  freer,  happier,  better  clothed,  better  lodged,  more 
enlightened,  than  in  any  previous  age,  and  they  challenged 
him  to  point  to  a  time  in  English  history  which  could 
honestly  be  preferred  to  the  present.  Jocelyn's  Chronicle 
coming  accidentally  across  him,  with  its  singularly  vivid 
picture  of  English  life  in  the  twelfth  century,  gave  him  the 
impulse  which  he  needed  to  answer  them,  and  '  Past  and 
Present '  was  written  off  with  singular  ease  in  the  first  seven 
weeks  of  1843.  Plis  heart  was  in  his  subject.  He  got 
the  book  completed,  strange  to  say,  without  preliminary 
labour-pangs,  and  without  leaving  in  his  correspondence, 
during  the  process  of  birth,  a  single  cry  of  complaint. 
The  style  shows  no  trace  of  rapid  composition,  unless  in 
the  white-heat  intensity  of  expression,  nor  is  it  savage  and 
scornful  anywhere,  but  rather  (for  Carlyle)  candid  and 
considerate.  The  arrangement  is  awkward — as  awkward 
as  that  of  '  Sartor  ' — for  indeed  there  is  no  arrangement 
at  all ;  and  yet,  as  a  whole,  the  book  made  a  more  imme- 
diate mark  than  anything  which  Carlyle  had  hitherto 
w^ritten.  Prophetic  utterances  seldom  fall  into  harmo- 
nious form  ;  they  do  not  need  it,  and  they  will  not  bear  it. 
Three  letters  remain,  written  during  the  parturition,  in 
which  he  explained  what  he  was  about.  To  his  mother 
he  says,  early  in  January  : — 


'Past  and  PremU:  243 

My  health  keeps  good,  better  than  it  used  to  do.  I  am  fast 
getting  ready  something  for  publication  too.  Though  it  is  not 
*  Cromwell '  yet,  it  is  something  more  immediately  applicable  to 
the  times  in  hand.  I  do  hope  you  will  see  it  soon,  though  it  is  a 
terrible  business  getting  a  thing  wriggled  out  of  the  confusions  it 
stands  amidst,  and  made  ready  for  presenting  to  mankind.  It  is 
like  building  a  diy  brick  house  out  of  a  quagmire  of  clay  and 
glar.i 

The  distress  of  the  poor,  I  apprehend,  is  less  here  at  present  than 
in  almost  any  other  large  town,  yet  you  cannot  walk  along  the 
streets  without  seeing  frightful  symptoms  of  it.  I  declare  I  begin 
to  feel  as  if  I  should  not  hold  my  peace  any  longer,  as  if  I  should 
perhaps  open  my  mouth  in  a  way  that  some  of  them  are  not  ex- 
pecting— we  shall  see  if  this  book  were  done. 

Again : — 

January  20. 
I  hope  it  will  be  a  rather  useful  kind  of  book.  It  goes  rather  in 
a  fiei-y  strain  about  the  present  condition  of  men  in  general,  and 
the  strange  pass  they  are  coming  to  ;  and  I  calculate  it  may  awaken 
here  and  there  a  slumbering  blockhead  to  rub  his  eyes  and  con- 
sider wliat  he  is  about  in  God's  creation— a  thing  highly  desirable 
at  present.  I  found  I  could  not  go  on  with  Cromwell,  or  with  any- 
thing else,  till  I  had  disburdened  my  heart  somewhat  in  regard  to 
all  that.  The  look  of  the  world  is  really  quite  oppressive  to  me. 
Eleven  thousand  souls  in  Paisley  alone  living  on  three-halfpence  a 
day,  and  the  governors  of  the  land  all  busy  shooting  partridges  and 
passing  corn-laws  the  while  !  It  is  a  thing  no  man  with  a  speaking 
tongue  in  his  head  is  entitled  to  be  silent  about.  My  only  diffi- 
culty is  that  I  have  far  too  much  to  say,  and  require  great  address 
in  deciding  how  to  say  it. 

And  to  Sterling: — 

February  23. 
No  man  was  lately  busier,  and  few  sicklier,  than  I  now  am. 
Work  is  not  jwssible  for  me  except  in  a  red-hot  element  which 
wastes  the  life  out  of  me.  I  have  still  three  weeks  of  the  ugliest 
labour,"  and  shall  be  fit  for  a  hospital  then.  The  thing  I  am  upon 
is  a  volume  to  be  called  *  Past  and  Present.'  It  is  moral,  political, 
histoiical,  and  a  most  questionable  red-hot  indignant  thing,  for  my 
heart  is  sick  to  look  at  the  things  now  going  on  in  this  England ; 

i  Olar,  mud  or  any  muist  sticky  subatanoe.  *  Correcting  proofs. 


244  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

and  the  two  millions  of  men  sitting  in  poor-law  Bastilles  seem  to 
ask  of  eveiy  English  soul,  '  Hast  thou  no  word  to  say  for  us  ?  '  On 
the  whole,  I  am  heartily  sorry  for  myself — sorry  that  I  could  not 
help  writing  such  words,  and  had  none  better  to  write.  Whether 
any  Cromwell,  or  what,  is  in  the  rear  of  all  this,  the  Fates  know. 

'  Past  andTPresent'  appeared  at  the  begiiiiiing  of  April, 
1843,  and  created  at  once  admiration  and  a  storm  of  anger. 
It  was  the  first  public  protest  against  the  '  Sacred  Science,' 
which  its  chief  professors  have  since  discovered  to  be  no 
science,  yet  which  then  was  accepted,  even  by  the  very 
clergy,  whose  teaching  it  made  ridiculous,  as  being  irre- 
fragable as  Euclid.  The  idol  is  dead  now,  and  may  be 
laughed  at  with  impunity.  It  was  then  in  its  shrine  above 
the  altar,  and  to  doubt  was  to  be  damned — by  all  the  news- 
papers. In  '  Chartism '  Carlyle  had  said  that  the  real  aim 
of  all  modern  revolutionary  movements  was  to  recover  for 
the  free  working  man  the  condition  which  he  had  lost 
when  he  ceased  to  be  a  serf.  The  present  book  was  a 
fuller  insistence  upon  the  same  truth.  The  world's  chief 
glory  was  the  having  ended  slavery,  the  having  raised  the 
toiler  with  his  hands  to  the  I'ank  and  dignity  of  a  free  man  ; 
and  Carlyle  had  to  saj^  that,  under  the  gospel  of  political 
economy  and  free  contract,  the  toiler  in  question  had  lost 
the  substance  and  been  fooled  with  the  shadow.  Gurth, 
born  thrall  of  Cedric  the  Saxon,  had  his  share  of  the  bacon. 
The  serf  was,  at  least,  as  well  cared  for  by  his  master  as  a 
horse  or  a  cow.  Under  free  contract  he  remained  the  slave 
of  nature,  which  would  kill  him  if  he  could  not  feed  him- 
self ;  he  was  as  much  as  ever  forced  to  work  under  the 
whip  of  hunger ;  while  he  was  an  ownerless  vagrant,  to  be 
employed  at  competitive  wages,  the  lowest  that  would 
keep  him  alive,  as  long  as  employment  was  to  be  had,  and 
to  be  turned  adrift  to  pine  in  a  workhouse  when  it  was  no 
longer  any  one's  interest  to  employ  him.  A  cow,  a  horse, 
a  pig,  even  a  canary  bird,  was  worth  a  price  in  the  market, 


^ Past  and  Present'  245 

was  worth  feeding  and  preserving.  The  free  labourer,  ex- 
cept at  such  times  as  there  happened  to  be  a  demand  for 
him,  was  worth  nothing.  The  rich,  while  this  gospel  was 
believed  in,  might  grow  richer ;  but  the  poor  nmst  remain 
poor  always,  without  hope  for  themselves,  without  prospect 
for  their  children,  more  truly  slaves,  in  spite  of  their  free- 
dom, and  ev^n  in  consequence  of  their  freedom,  in  a  coun- 
try so  densely  peopled  as  England,  than  the  Carolina 
Nigger,  The  picture  was  set  out  with  the  irony  of  wliich 
Carlyle  was  so  unrivalled  a  master,  with  the  indignation  of 
which  irony  is  the  a7't. 

With  the  existing  state  of  things  the  book  begins ; 
with  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  the  only  possible 
remedies  for  it,  the  book  ends;  in  the  middle  stands  hi 
contrast  the  ancient  English  life  under  the  early  Plan- 
tagenet  kings,  before  freedom  in  the  modern  sense  had 
begun  to  exist ;  and  the  picture  of  St.  Edmund's  Abbey 
and  its  monks,  which  is  thus  drawn,  is  without  a  rival  in 
modern  literature.  As  to  the  relative  merits  of  that  ao:e 
and  ours  there  will  be  different  opinions.  We  know  so 
well  where  the  collar  galls  our  own  necks,  that  we  think 
anyone  better  off  whose  shoulder  does  not  suffer  at  that 
particular  point.  Nor  did  Carlyle  insist  on  drawing 
comparisons,  being  content  to  describe  real  flesh-and-blood 
human  beings  as  they  were  then,  and  as  they  are  now,  and 
to  leave  us  to  our  own  reflections. 

On  the  whole,  perhaps  we  shall  agree  with  what 
Lockhart  answered,  when  Carlyle  sent  his  book  to  him. 
Lockhart  said  he  could  accept  none  of  his  friend's  inferen- 
ces, except  one,  that  *  we  were  all  wrong,  and  were  all  like 
to  be  damned  ; '  but  that  '  it  was  a  book  such  as  no  other 
man  could  do,  or  dream  of  doing;  that  it  had  made  him 
conscious  of  life  and  feeling  as  he  had  never  been  before; 
and  that,  finally,  he  wished  Carlyle  would  write  something 
more  about  the  middle  ages,  write  some  romance,  if  he 


246  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

liked.  He  liad  more  power  of  putting  life  into  the  dry 
bones  than  anyone  but  Scott ;  and  that,  as  nothing  could 
be  less  like  Scott's  manner  of  doing  it  than  Carlyle's,  there 
could  be  no  suspicion  of  imitation.' 

But  it  is  unnecessary  for  ine  to  review  or  criticise  further 
a  work  which  has  been  read  so  universally,  and  as  to  whicl 
no  two  persons  are  likely  entirely  to  think  alike.  I  shall 
endeavour  rather  at  this  point  to  describe  something  of 
the  effect  M'hich  Carlyle  was  producing  among  his  contem- 
poraries. 'Past  and  Present'  completes  the  cycle  of 
writings  which  were  in  his  first  style,  and  by  which  he 
most  influenced  the  thought  of  his  time.  He  w^as  a 
Bedouin,  as  he  said  of  himself,  a  rough  child  of  the  desert. 
His  hand  had  been  against  every  man,  and  every  man's 
hand  against  him.  He  had  offended  men  off  all  political 
parties,  and  every  professor  of  a  recognised  form  of 
religion.  He  had  offended  Tories  by  his  Kadicalism,  and 
Radicals  by  his  scorn  of  their  formulas.  He  had  offended 
Pligh  Churchmen  by  his  Protestantism,  and  Low  Church- 
men by  his  evident  unorthodoxy.  I^o  sect  or  following 
could  claim  him  as  belonging  to  them  ;  if  they  did,  some 
rough  utterance  w^ould  soon  undeceive  them.  Yet  all  had 
acknowledo:ed  that  here  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  Intel- 
lectual  gifts  and  of  inflexible  veracity.  If  his  style  w^as 
anomalous,  it  was  brilliant.  No  such  humourist  had  been 
known  in  England  since  Swift ;  and  the  humour,  while  as 
searching  as  the  great  Dean's,  was  infinitely  more  genial. 
Those  who  were  most  angry  with  Carlyle  could  not  deny 
that  much  that  he  said  was  true.  In  spite  of  political 
economy,  all  had  to  admit  there  was  such  a  thing  as 
justice;  that  it  was  the  duty  of  men  to  abstain  from 
lying  a  great  deal  more  than  they  did.  '  A  new  thinker,' 
in  Emerson's  phrase, '  had  been  let  loose  upon  the  planet ; ' 
the  representatives  of  the  Keligiones  Licitse,  the  conven- 
tional varieties  of  permitted  practice  and  speculation,  found 


Position  cmd  Influence,  247 

themselves  encountered  by  a  novel  element  which  would 
assimilate  with  none  of  them,  which  disturbed  all  their 
digestions,  yet  which  they  equally  could  not  ignore. 

This  on  the  surface.  But  there  were  circumstances  in 
the  time  which  made  Carlyle's  mode  of  thought  excep- 
tionally interesting,  to  young  men  especially  whose  con- 
victions were  unformed  and  whose  line  of  life  was  yet 
undetermined  for  them.  It  was  an  era  of  new  ideas,  of 
swift  if  silent  spiritual  revolution.  Reform  in  Parliament 
was  the  symbol  of  a  general  hope  for  the  introduction  of 
a  new  and  better  order  of  things.  The  Church  had 
broken  away  from  her  old  anchorage.  The  squire  parsons, 
with  their  sleepy  services,  were  to  serve  no  longer.  Among 
the  middle  classes  there  was  the  Evangelical  revival ;  the 
Catholic  revival  at  Oxford  had  convulsed  the  University, 
and  had  set  half  the  educated  men  and  women  in  Enoj. 
land  speculating  on  the  authority  of  the  priesthood,  and 
the  essential  meaning  of  Christianity.  All  were  agreed 
to  have  done  with  compromise  and  conventionalities. 
Again  the  critical  and  enquiring  spirit  which  had  been 
checked  by  the  French  Revolution  had  awakened  from 
the  sleep  of  half  a  century.  Physical  science,  now  that 
it  was  creating  railroads,  bridging  the  Atlantic  with  steam- 
ships, and  giving  proof  of  capacity  which  could  no  longer 
be  sneered  at,  was  forming  a  philosophy  of  the  earth  and 
its  inhabitants,  agitating  and  inconvenient  to  orthodoxy, 
yet  difficult  to  deal  with.  Benthamism  was  taking  posses- 
sion of  donynions  which  religion  had  claimed  hitherto  as 
its  own,  was  interpreting  morality  in  a  way  of  its  own,  and 
directing  political  action.  Modern  history,  modern  lan- 
guages and  literature,  with  which  Englishmen  hitherto 
liad  been  contented  to  have  the  slightest  acquaintance, 
were  pushing  their  way  into  school  and  college  and  pri- 
vate families,  forcing  us  into  contact  with  opinions  as  to  the 
most  serious  subjects  entirely  different  from  our  own.    We 


248  CarlyMs  Life  in  London. 

were  told  to  enquire  ;  but  to  enquire  like  Des  Cartes  with 
a  preconceived  resolution  that  the  orthodox  conclusion 
must  come  out  true — an  excellent  rule  for  those  who  can 
follow  it,  which  all  unhappily  cannot  do.  To  those  who 
enquired  with  open  minds  it  appeared  that  things  which 
good  and  learned  men  were  doubting  about  must  be  them- 
selves doubtful.  Thus  all  round  us,  the  intellectual  light- 
ships had  broken  from  their  moorings,  and  it  was  then 
a  new  and  trying  experience.  The  present  generation 
which  has  grown  up  in  the  floating  condition,  which  has 
got  used  to  it  and  has  learned  to  swim  for  itself,  will  never 
know  what  it  was  to  find  the  lights  all  drifting,  the  com- 
passes all  awry,  and  nothing  left  to  steer  by  except  the 
stars. 

In  this  condition  the  best  and  bravest  of  my  own  con- 
temporaries determined  to  have  done  with  insincerity,  to 
find  ground  under  their  feet,  to  let  the  uncertain  remain 
uncertain,  but  to  learn  how  much  and  what  we  could  hon- 
estly regard  as  true,  and  believe  that  and  live  by  it.  Ten- 
nyson became  the  voice  of  this  feeling  in  poetry  ;  Carlyle 
in  what  was  called  prose,  though  prose  it  w^as  not,  but 
something  by  itself,  with  a  form  and  melody  of  its  owm. 
Tennyson's  poems,  the  group  of  poems  wdiich  closed  with 
'  In  Memoriam,'  became  to  many  of  us  what  the  '  Chris- 
tian Year '  was  to  orthodox  Churchmen.  We  read  them, 
and  they  became  part  of  our  minds,  the  expression  in  ex- 
quisite language  of  the  feelings  which  were  working  in 
ourselves.  Carlyle  stood  beside  him  as  a  prophet  and 
teacher  ;  and  to  the  young,  the  generous,  to  everyone  who 
took  life  seriously,  who  wished  to  make  an  honourable  use 
of  it,  •  and  could  not  be  content  with  sitting  down  and 
making  money,  his  words  w^ere  like  the  morning  reveillee. 
The  middle-aged  and  experienced  who  have  outgrown  their 
enthusiasm,  who  have  learnt  wdiat  a  real  power  money  is, 
and  how  inconvenient  the  absence  of  it,  may  forego  a 


Position  wnd  Influence.  249 

liigher  creed  ;  may  believe  without  much  difficulty  that 
utilitarianism  is  the  only  basis  of  morals ;  that  mind  is  a 
product  of  organised  matter;  that  our  wisest  course  is  to 
make  ourselves  comfortable  in  this  world,  whatever  may 
become  of  the  next.  Others  of  nobler  nature  who  would 
care  little  for  their  comforts  may  come  at  last,  after  long 
reflection  on  this  world,  to  the  sad  conclusion  that  nothing 
can  be  known  about  it ;  that  the  external  powers,  what- 
ever they  may  be,  are  indifferent  to  human  action  or  human 
welfare. 

Kuxai  6fjia)5  o  r*  depyos  dvnp  o  re  noWa  eopywf, 
(V  5e  l^  Tifj.^  fj  fxev  KOKOs  rje  Koi  taOXos. 

The  good  and  the  evil  lie  down  together,  the  eaorth  covers  them, 
and  there  is  no  difference. 

To  such  an  opinion  some  men,  and  those  not  the  worst, 
may  be  driven  after  weary  observation  of  life.  But  young 
men  will  never  believe  it ;  or,  if  they  do,  they  have  been 
young  only  in  name.  Young  men  have  a  conscience,  in 
which  they  recognise  the  voice  of  God  in  their  hearts. 
They  have  hope.  They  have  love  and  admiration  for  gen- 
erous and  noble  actions,  which  tell  them  that  there  is  more 
in  this  world  than  material  things  which  they  can  see  and 
handle.  They  have  an  intellect,  and  they  cannot  conceive 
that  it  was  given  to  them  by  a  force  which  had  none  of  its 
own.  Amidst  the  controversies,  the  arguments,  the  doubts, 
the  crowding  uncertainties  of  foi'ty  years  ago,  Carlyle's 
voice  was  to  the  young  generation  of  Englishmen  like  the 
sound  of  *  ten  thousand  trumpets '  in  their  ears,  as  the 
Knight  of  Grange  said  of  John  Knox.  They  had  been 
taught  to  believe  in  a  living  God.  Alas !  it  had  seemed 
as  if  the  life  might  be  other  moods  and  tenses,  but  not  in 
the  present  indicative.  They  heard  of  what  lie  had  done 
in  the  past,  of  what  He  would  do  in  the  future,  of  what  it 
was  wished  that  He  might  do,  of  what  we  were  to  pray  to 


250  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

Him  that  He  \Yould  do.  Carl  jle  was  the  first  to  make  us 
see  His  active  and  actual  presence  now  in  this  working 
world,  not  in  rhetoric  and  fine  sentiments,  not  in  problem- 
atic miracles  at  Lom-des  or  Salette,  but  in  clear  letters  of 
fire  which  all  might  read,  written  over  the  entire  surface 
of  human  experience.  To  him  God's  existence  was  not  an 
arguable  probability,  a  fact  dependent  for  its  certainty  on 
Church  authority,  or  on  Apostolic  succession,  or  on  so- 
called  histories  which  might  possibly  prove  to  be  no  more 
than  legends ;  but  an  awful  reality  to  which  the  fates  of 
nations,  the  fate  of  each  individual  man,  bore  perpetual 
witness.  Here  and  only  here  lay  the  sanction  and  the 
meaning  of  the  word  duty.  We  were  to  do  our  work,  not 
because  it  would  prove  expedient  and  we  should  be  re- 
warded for  doing  it,  but  because  we  were  bound  to  do  it 
by  our  Master's  orders.  We  were  to  be  just  and  true,  be- 
cause God  abhorred  wrong  and  hated  lies ;  and  because  an 
account  of  our  deeds  and  words  was  literally  demanded 
and  exacted  from  us.  And  the  lesson  came  from  one  who 
seemed  '  to  speak  with  authority  and  not  as  the  Scribes,' 
as  if  what  he  said  was  absolute  certainty  beyond  question 
or  cavil. 

Religious  teachers,  indeed,  had  said  the  same  thing,  but 
they  had  so  stifled  the  practical  bearing  of  it  under  their 
doctrines  and  traditions,  that  honest  men  had  found  a  difil- 
culty  in  listening  to  them.  In  Carljde's  writings  dogma 
and  tradition  had  melted  like  a  mist,  and  the  awful  central 
fact  burnt  clear  once  more  in  the  midst  of  Heaven.  Nor 
could  anyone  doubt  Carlyle's  power,  or  Carlyle's  sincerity. 
He  was  no  founder  of  a  sect  bent  on  glorifying  his  own 
personality.  He  was  no  spiritual  janissary  maintaining  a 
cause  which  he  was  paid  to  defend.  He  was  simply  a 
man  of  high  original  genius  and  boundless  acquirements, 
speaking  out  with  his  whole  heart  the  convictions  at  which 
he  had  himself  arrived  in  the  disinterested  search  after 


Position  and  Influence.  251 

truth.  If  we  asked  who  he  was,  we  heard  that  his  cliar- 
acter  was  like  his  teaching ;  that  he  was  a  peasant's  son, 
brought  up  in  poverty,  and  was  now  leading  a  pure,  simple 
life  in  a  small  house  in  London,  seeking  no  promotion  for 
himself,  and  content  with  the  wages  of  an  artisan. 

I  am  speaking  chiefly  of  the  efPect  of  Carlyle  in  the 
circles  m  which  1  was  myself  moving.  To  others  he  was 
recommended  by  his  bold  attitude  on  the  traditionary 
formulas,  the  defenders  of  which,  though  they  could  no 
longer  use  stake  or  gibbet,  yet  could  still  ruin  their  an- 
tagonists' fortunes  and  command  them  to  submit  or  starve. 
Mere  negations,  whether  of  Voltaire  or  Hume  or  David 
Strauss,  or  whoever  it  might  be,  he  valued  little.  To  him 
it  was  a  small  thing  comparatively  to  know  that  this  or 
that  theory  of  things  was  false.  The  important  matter 
was  not  to  know  what  was  untrue,  but  what  was  true. 
He  never  put  lance  in  rest  simply  for  unorthodoxy.  False 
as  the  priestly  nmmmeries  at  Bruges  might  be,  he  could 
not  wish  them  away  to  make  room  for  materialism  which 
was  falser  than  they.  Yet  he  had  not  concealed  that  he 
had  small  faith  in  bishops,  small  faith  in  verbal  inspira- 
tions, or  articles  of  religion,  small  concern  for  the  bap- 
tismal or  other  controversies  then  convulsing  the  Church 
of  England  ;  and  such  side  cuts  and  slashes  were  welcome 
to  the  Theological  Liberals,  who  found  him  so  far  on  their 
side. 

The  Radicals  again  might  resent  his  want  of  reverence 
for  liberty,  for  political  economy,  and  such  like ;  but  he 
could  denounce  Corn-laws  and  Game-preserving  aristocrats 
with  a  scorn  which  the  most  eloquent  of  them  might  envy. 
Li  the  practical  objects  at  which  he  was  aiming,  he  was 
more  Radical  than  they  were.  They  feared  him,  but  they 
found  him  useful. 

There  were  others,  again,  who  were  attracted  by  the 
quality  which  Jeffrey  so  much  deprecated.     That  he  was 


252  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

so  '  dreadfully  in  earnest,'  that  he  could  not  sit  down 
quietly  and  enjoy  himself  '  without  a  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse in  which  he  could  believe,'  was  not  an  offence,  but  a 
recommendation.  Some  people  cannot  help  being  in  earn- 
est, cannot  help  requiring  a  real  belief,  if  life  is  not  to  be- 
come intolerable  to  them.  Add  to  this  the  novelty  of 
Carlyle's  mode  of  speech,  his  singularly  original  humour 
and  imagery ;  add  also  the  impressiveness  of  his  personal 
presence,  as  reported  by  those  who  had  been  privileged  to 
see  him,  and  we  have  an  explanation  of  the  universal 
curiosity  which  began  to  be  felt  about  the  Prophet  of 
Cheyne  Row,  and  the  fascination  which  he  exercised  over 
a  certain  class  of  minds  in  days  of  the  Melbourne  ministry 
and  the  agitation  over  the  '  Tracts  for  the  Times.' 

I,  for  one  (if  I  may  so  far  speak  of  myself),  was  saved 
by  Carlyle's  writings  from  Positivism,  or  Romanism,  or 
Atheism,  or  any  other  of  the  creeds  or  No  Creeds  which 
in  those  years  were  whirling  us  about  in  Oxford,  like 
leaves  in  an  autumn  storm.  The  controversies  of  the 
place  had  unsettled  the  faith  which  we  had  inherited. 
The  alternatives  were  being  thrust  upon  us  of  believing 
nothing,  or  believing  everything  which  superstition,  dis- 
guised as  Church  authority,  had  been  pleased  to  impose ; 
or,  as  a  third  course,  and  a  worse  one— of  acquiescing,  for 
worldly  convenience,  in  the  established  oi'der  of  things, 
which  had  been  made  intellectually  incredible.  Carlyle 
taught  me  a  creed  which  1  could  then  accept  as  really  true ; 
which  I  have  held  ever  since,  with  increasing  confidence, 
as  the  interpretation  of  my  existence  and  the  guide  of  my 
conduct,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  act  up  to  it.  Then 
and  always  I  looked,  and  have  looked,  to  him  as  my  mas- 
ter. In  a  long  personal  intimacy  of  over  thirty  years,  I 
learnt  to  reverence  the  man  as  profoundly  as  I  honoured 
the  teacher.  .  .  .  But  of  this  I  need  say  no  more,  and 
can  now  go  on  with  the  story. 


Bevkws  of  '  Past  and  Present!'  253 

John  Carlyle  was  in  Clieyne  Row  when  '  Past  and  Pres- 
ent' came  out,  and  was  a  stay  and  comfort  to  liis  brotlier 
in  the  lassitude  which  always  followed  the  publication  of  a 
book.  He  had  left  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh.  Lady  Clare 
had  wished  him  to  go  back  with  her  to  Italy,  but  for  this 
he  had  no  inclination.  An  opening  had  presented  itself 
in  London.  Lord  Jeffrey  had  recommended  him  to  Lady 
Holland  as  physician  in  attendance,  and  that  distinguished 
lady  had  been  favourably  inclined  ;  but  Carlyle,  when 
John  consulted  him,  considered  '  that  she  was  a  wretched, 
unreasonable,  tyrannous  old  ci'eature,'  of  whom  it  would 
be  wise  for  John  to  steer  clear.  As  a  guest  at  Chelsea  he 
was  welcome  always,  both  to  his  brother  and  his  sister-in- 
law  :  good-humoured,  genial,  always  a  sunny  presence  in 
a  house  where  sunshine  was  needed.  The  book  sold  fast. 
On  April  28,  1843,  Carlyle  wrote  to  his  brother  James,  at 
Scotsbrig : — 

People  seem  to  get  themselves  ccnsiderably  stnick  by  it,  and 
'  look  two  ways  for  Sunday,'  which  is  a  very  proper  result  for  them  ; 
but,  indeed,  I  for  one  care  but  little  what  becomes  of  them  with 
it.     That  is  tJieir  outlook  now,  not  mine. 

In  May  John  left  for  Scotland,  leaving  regrets  belnnd 
him. 

I  was  very  sad  about  your  going  (Carlyle  said)  ;  I  was  weak  and 
in  bad  spirits  at  any  rate.  As  I  saw  you  roll  off,  it  was  an  emblem 
to  me  of  all  the  partings,  bodily  and  others,  men  have  in  this 
world,  summed  up  at  last  by  the  grand  parting  which  awaits  us  all 
— which,  if  it  be  God*s  will,  may  perhaps  prove  but  a  meeting  under 
happier  omens. 

The  reviewers  were  all  at  work  on  '  Past  and  Present,' 
*  wondering,  admiring,  blaming — chiefly  the  last.' 

Glitter,  clatter  (he  said  of  it  in  his  Journal)  hat  niclits  zu  bedetUen 
— except,  indeed,  a  few  pages  from  Emerson  in  his  'Dial,'  which 
really  contain  a  eulogy  of  a  magnificent  sort.  A  word  from  F. 
Maurice  in  defence  of  me  from  some  Church  of  England  reviewer 
is  also  gratifying.  One  knows  not  whether  even  such  things  are  a 
benefit — are  not  a  new  peril  and  bewilderment.    I  believe  it  must 


254  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

have  gone  into  the  heart  of  one  and  the  other  in  these  times.  It 
has  been  to  me  a  considerable  relief  to  see  it  fairly  out  of  me  ;  and 
I  look  at  the  disastrous  condition  of  England  with  much  more  pa- 
tience for  the  present,  my  conscience  no  longer  reproaching  me 
with  any  duty  that  I  could  do,  and  was  neglecting  to  do.  That 
book  always  stood  between  me  and  Cromwell,  and  now  that  has 
fledged  itself  and  flown  off. 

'  Cromwell,'  however,  w^as  still  not  inimediatelj  executa- 
ble. Tired  as  he  was  with  the  efforts  of  the  winter,  he 
was  less  than  ever  able  to  face  the  London  season,  espe- 
cially as  increasing  popularity  increased  people's  eagerness 
to  see  him.  An  admirer — a  Mr.  Redwood,  a  solicitor — 
living  at  Llandough,  a  few  miles  from  Cardiff,  had  long 
hnmbly  desired  that  Carlyle  would  pay  him  a  visit.  An 
invitation  coming  at  the  same  time  from  Bishop  Thirlwall, 
at  St.  David's,  which  could  be  fitted  in  with  the  other,  he 
decided  to  lay  his  work  by  for  the  present,  and  make  ac- 
quaintance with  new  friends  and  a  new^  part  of  the  conn- 
try.  Mr.  Hedw^ood,  a  quiet  lawyer,  of  no  literary  preten- 
sions, engaged  that  he  should  not  be  made  a  show  of, 
promised  perfect  quiet,  sea-bathing,  a  horse  if  he  wished  to 
ride,  and  the  absence  of  all  society,  except  of  himself  and 
his  old  mother.  These  temptations  w-ere  sufficient.  Qn 
July  3  he  left  London  by  train  from  Paddington  to  Bris- 
tol. A  day  or  two  were  to  be  given -to  acquaintances  at 
Clifton,  and  thence  he  was  to  proceed  by  a  Cardiff  steamer. 
All  was  strange  to  him.  He  had  never  before  been  in  the 
South  or  West  of  England  ;  and  his  impressions,  coming 
fresh,  formed  themselves  into  pictures,  which  he  threw 
down  in  his  letters  to  his  wife.  Here  is  Bath,  as  seen 
from  the  window  of  the  railway  carriage — rapidly  ob- 
served, yet  with  what  curious  minuteness  : — 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Clifton  :  July  4,  1843. 
Bath,  built  of  white  stone  in  trim  streets,  enclosed  amid  gnarled, 
beautifully  green,  and  feathered  hills,  looked  altogether  princely 


Visit  io  South   Wales.  255 

after  those  poor  brick  towns,  like  an  ancient  decayed  prince — for 
it  was  smoke-soiled,  dingj',  and  lonely  looking — yet  in  the  cbim- 
ney-pots  and  gables  of  a  certain  polite  fantasticality,  and  all  ranked 
in  straight,  short  streets,  which  ran  in  every  direction  on  every 
variety  of  level,  as  if  they  had  been  all  marching  and  drilling  in 
that  hollow,  rough  place,  each  in  the  road  that  suited  him  best. 
There  was  something  in  all  this  that  reminded  one  of  Beau  Nash 
and  Smollett's  Lady  of  Quality.  My  Cockney  tourist  lady  (com- 
panion in  compartment)  pronounced  it  to  be  a  city  built  of  stone, 
and  of  considerable  extent — facts  both. 

The  house  in  Cheyne  Row  was  cleaned  and  painted 
during  his  absence,  his  wife  superintending.  On  sucli  oc- 
casions he  was  liiniself  better  out  of  the  way.  Her  letters 
may  be  referred  to  occasionally  by  the  side  of  Carlyle's 
reports  of  his  own  doings  to  her.* 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Clifton  :  July  6,  1843. 
My  Baira, — I  have  been  at  Chepstow  in  all  kinds  of  weather — 
in  rain,  in  glowing  heat,  and  then  home  through  the  heart  of  thun- 
derstorms. I  am  totally  wearied,  and  have  just  got  uj)  to  my 
sleeping-place,  which  seems  tolerably  quiet.  I  must  not  spend 
above  a  minute  or  two  in  writing.  Take  my  kind  good-night, 
therefore,  dear  Goody,  and  thanks  for  the  punctual,  most  wel- 
come dispatch  which  I  found  lying  on  my  table  on  returning  to- 
day. You  are  very  good — write  always  ;  except  by  youi*  letters,  I 
am  at  present  disunited  from  all  the  earth. 

Later : — 

Chepstow  is  beautiful.  The  rocks  of  the  Avon  at  Clifton,  on  the 
road  thither  by  steam,  excel  all  things  I  have  seen.  Even  I,  the 
most  determined  anti-view  hunter,  find  them  worthy  of  a  word. 
I  have  passed  the  day,  perhaps  not  ill,  though  in  laborious  idle- 
ness. Who  knows  ?  Yesternight  we  had  a  soiree  at  Mr.  Hare's  ; 
one  or  two  intelligent  peraons — Dr.  Symons,  a  hectic  clergyman  ; 
a  Mr.  Fripps  (I  think),  very  deep  in  business  ;  all  decided  Car- 
lylians.  Ach  (>oU  !  There  was  also  a  tremendous  artist,  fiddler, 
and  piano-player ;  and  certain  pretty  young  women  sate  speech- 
leas.  I  will  to  sleep,  I  will  to  sleejj !  The  scoundiel  umbrella 
>  Letters  and  MemoriaU^  toL  i ,  p.  145,  ^o. 


256  Carlijle's  Life  in  London. 

vendor  !  '  He  is  the  first  below  Darwin's  entry,  on  the  same  side. 
Send  the  Stiviahile  '^  in  his  brougham  to  thunder  eight-ninths  of  the 
wretched  tailor-life  out  of  him.  Adieu,  and  a  thousand  good- 
nights.  Ever  your  affectionate 

T.  Cablyle. 

Llandough,  Cowbridge  :  Thursday,  July  7,  1843. 
Dearest, — Your  precious  little  billet  came  to  me  at  breakfast. 
I  got  down  in  good  time  to  my  Cardiff  steamer  ;  a  biisk  breezy 
morning,  promising  well ;  and  again,  after  endless  ringing  of  bells 
and  loading  of  hamj^ers  and  bullying  and  jumbling,  we  got  off 
down  the  muddy  Avon  once  more.  I  iDassed  a  most  silent  day — 
remembrances  of  all  kinds — and  these  my  only  occupation.  On 
the  Somersetshire  shore  we  passed  a  bathing  establishment — hap- 
less mothers  of  families  sitting  on  folding-stools  by  the  beach  of 
muddy  tide  streams.  It  is  a  solitary  sea,  the  Severn  one.  We 
passed  near  only  one  ship,  and  in  that  there  lay  a  cabin-boy  sound 
asleep  amidst  ropes,  and  a  black-visaged  sailor  had  raised  his  shock 
head,  only  half  awake,  through  the  hatches  to  see  what  w^e  were. 
They  lay  there  waiting  for  a  wind.  I  smoked  two  cigars  and  a 
half.  I  hummed  all  manner  of  tunes — sang  even  portions  of 
Psalms  in  a  humming  tone  for  my  own  behoof,  reclining  on  my 
elbow  ;  and  so  the  day  wore  on,  and  at  three  o'clock  we  got  into 
Cardiff  dock,  and  I,  sharp  on  the  outlook,  descried  the  good  Red- 
wood waiting  there.  He  had  a  tub-gig — a  most  indescribable,  thin- 
bodied,  semi-articulate,  but  altogether  helpful  kind  of  a  factotum 
manservant,  who  stepped  on  board  for  my  luggage ;  and  so,  in 
few  minutes  after,  giving  a  glance  at  Cardiff  Castle  and  buying  a 
few  cigars,  we  got  eagerly  to  the  road,  and  not  long  after  five  had 
done  our  twelve  miles  and  were  safe  home.  It  was  the  beauti- 
fullest  day ;  a  green,  pleasant  country,  full  of  shrubby  knolls  and 
white  thatched  cottages  ;  altogether  a  very  reasonable  drive.  Un- 
expectedly, in  a  totally  solitaiy  spot,  I  was  bidden  dismount ;  and 
looking  to  the  right,  saw  close  by  the  Redwood  mansion — a  house 
about  the  capacity  of  Craigenputtock,  though  in  Welsh  style,  all 
thin  shaven,  covered  with  roses,  hedged  off  from  the  parish  road 
by  invisible  fences  and  a  patch  of  very  pretty  lawn.  The  old  lady, 
an  innocent  native  old  Quakeress,  received  me  with  much  simplic- 
ity, asked  for  you,    &c.     Our  dinner,   which  she   had   carefully 

^  Carlyle  had  bought  an  umbrella  for  his  wife,  which  was  to  have  been  sent 
home,  and  was  not. 

*  John  Sterhng's  father.     Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  i.,  p.  20. 


visit  U)  South   Wales,  257 

cooked  and  kept  hot  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  consisted  of — vealJ 
Nay,  I  heard  of  a  veal  pie  for  future  use.  I  suppose  they  have 
killed  a  fatted  calf  for  me,  knowing  my  tastes  !  There  was  good 
ham  and  a  dish  of  good  boiled  peas,  and  a  pudding.  I  did  very 
well,  and  we  have  been  to  walk  since  ;  and  the  place,  on  the  whole, 
is  the  loneliest  and  the  most  silent  in  all  the  earth,  and  I  think  I 
shall  leai-n  to  do  very  well.  Adieu,  adieu  !  Sleep  well  and  dream 
of  me.  T.  C. 

Friday  morning,  7.30  A.M. 

Being  on  my  feet  again  too  early,  I  will  add  a  word  till  there  be 
some  likeness  of  breakfast,  or,  at  lowest,  of  shaving.  All  is  still 
here  as  in  a  hermitage  of  La  Trappe.  But  one  dirty  little  yelp  of 
a  dog  was  sufficient  to  awaken  me  a  while  ago.  A  niessin  is  as  good 
as  a  lion  ! 

My  Bishop  is  some  sixty  miles  inland.  I  know  not  whether  I 
shall  get  to  him,  nor,  indeed,  what  my  capabilities  yet  are.  Oh 
dear!  I  wish  I  was  near  thee,  with  thy  hot  coffee-pot,  at  this 
moment ;  but  I  would  not  stay  there  when  I  was  so.  I  will  end, 
and  go  shave  at  present.  Has  that  accursed  chimsera  of  a  Cockney 
not  sent  the  umbrella  yet  ?  I  could  see  him  trailed  thrice  through 
the  Thames  for  his  scoundrel  conduct.  No  man  knows  what  break- 
ing his  word  will  do  for  the  general  injuiy.  Adieu — a  thoustind 
blessings !  T.  C. 

Almost  a  fortnight  was  given  to  Llandongh.  His  friends 
were  all  kindness  and  attention,  and  their  efforts  were 
gratefully  appreciated ;  but  the  trutli  must  be  told — Car- 
lyle  required  more  than  simple,  quiet  people  had  to  give 
him.  He  was  bored.  He  reproached  himself,  but  he  could 
not  help  it.  Mr.  Redwood  was  engaged  all  day  in  his 
office  at  Cowbridge.  His  guest  was  left  mainly  to  him- 
self— to  ride  about  the  neighbourhood,  to  bathe,  to  lie 
under  the  trees  on  the  lawn  and  smoke,  precisely  what  he 
had  fancied  that  he  had  desired.  *  All  was  totally  somno- 
lent, not  ill  fitted  for  a  man  that  had  come  out  of  London 
to  see  if  he  could  sleep.'  He  amused  himself  tolerably 
with  his  wife's  letters  and  with  Tieck's  *  Yittoria  Acco- 
rombona,'  which  she  had  provided  him  with,  and  had 

>  Carlyle  could  not  digest  veaL 
Vol.  III.— 17 


258  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

begged  him  to  read.  He  could  not  approve,  however,  of 
this  singular  book :  '  a  dreadful  piece  of  work  on  Tieck's 
part,'  he  called  it.  But  occasionally  his  poor  host,  to  show 
his  respect,  absented  himself  from  his  own  work  to  do  the 
honours  of  the  country,  and  Carlyle  required  all  his  self- 
command  not  to  be  uncivil. 

I  liave  been  at  St.  Donat's  (he  writes,  July  12).  I  have  just  got 
home  through  rain  and  precipitous,  rough  roads,  at  a  gallop  which 
has  jumbled  me  all  to  pieces.  Devil  take  all  *  days  '  of  that  sort ! 
I  had  just  got  your  letter  when  I  went  away.  I  went  happy,  I  re- 
turn mee-s^erahle — fly  up  into  my  sooty  *  study,'  to  be  at  least  alone 
for  a  while.  How  happy  I  was  over  *  Quarterly  Review, '  peace, 
silence,  and  my  Goody's  letter  ! 

Yesterday,  with  a  rational  exertion  of  ill-nature,  I  briefly  de- 
clined going  for  an  Arcadian  ramble  to  the  coast  all  day  ;  or,  in- 
deed, going  any  whither,  indicating  that  I  preferred  the  green 
grass,  sunshine,  and  solitude  among  the  trees  and  winds.  The 
good  R.  in  an  instant  cheerfully  surrendered,  cheerfully  went  off 
to  his  attorney's  office,  and  left  me  totally  alone  till  dinner.  I  have 
not  for  long  had  so  peaceable  a  day.  The  old  black  cobweb  coat 
was  warm  enough  for  the  temperature.  I  lay  upon  the  grass  on  the 
brae-side,  under  shadow  if  I  liked ;  smoked  my  pipe  and  looked  out 
upon  the  waving  woods,  and  felt  their  great  deep  melancholy 
sough  a  real  blessing  to  me. 

'  Accorombona '  is  far  the  pleasantest  thing  I  have  yet  fallen  in 
with  since  I  left  you  ;  a  very  gorgeous  composition,  but  too  showy 
in  diamonds — Bristol  diamonds— tinsel,  and  the  jjrecious  metals 
for  my  taste.  One  finds  it  to  be  untrue,  almost  as  an  opera  ;  yet 
much  is  true,  genial,  warm,  and  very  grand.  Vittoria  herself  is 
about  the  best  of  all  opera  heroines — a  right  divine  stage  goddess. 
Bracciano,  too,  is  clearly  her  mate,  as  you  say ;  yet  I  could  not 
but  abhor  that  murder  he  did  of  the  poor,  frivolous,  trembling 
creature — it  is  detestable  !  The  sublime  Song  of  Solomon  passages 
did  also  somewhat  transcend  me.  In  fact,  it  is  a  grand  thing ;  but 
Bristol  diamond,  not  a  little  of  it.  A  thousand  thanks  to  Tieck 
and  the  Coadjutor  for  such  a  gift  in  these  latitudes.  Alas !  this 
morning  I  am  reduced  to  '  Lyell's  Geology,'  a  twaddling,  circum- 
fused,  ill-writing  man.  I  seem  to  hear  his  uninspired  voice  all 
along,  and  see  the  clear  leaden  twinkle  of  his  small  bead  eyes. 
However,  I  will  persist  a  little. 


Visit  to  South  Wales,  259 

July  18. 

This  day  has  been  as  close,  dim,  and  snltry  as  a  day  need  be : 

thunder  rumbling  on  all  sides  of  the  horizon  ever  since  morning. 

I  have  read  several  articles  in  the  *  Quarterly  Review,'  kept  aloof 

from  Lyell  hitherto,  declined  to  ride,  walked  out  a  Rttle  way — in 

short,  sauntered  in  the  idlest  manner I  have  written 

to  Thirlwall  that  I  leave  this  on  Monday.  A  coach  goes  through 
Cowbridgo  about  noon.  Some  sixty  miles,  I  believe  it  is,  to  Car- 
marthen. How  long  I  may  stay  with  Thirlwall  is  not  perfectly 
clear.  Two  days  was  the  time  I  talked  of,  but,  if  all  prospered 
exceedingly,  it  might  extend  to  three.  I  shall  get  no  rest  in  any 
of  these  places,  and  it  may  as  well  be  in  a  plenum  as  in  a  vacuum. 
.  .  .  .  In  Llandough,  close  at  hand  here,  over  the  knoll  top, 
I  saw  certain  of  the  population  in  the  street  as  I  passed  along  : 
little  flabby  figures,  brown  as  a  berry  ;  fat,  squat,  wide  flowing  ; 
their  clothes,  of  almost  no  colour  (such  is  the  prevalence  of  time 
and  i)overty),  hung  round  them  as  if  '  thrown  on  with  a  pitchfork  * 
— very  noteworthy  little  fellows  (of  both  sexes)  indeed.  They 
saluted  kindly  as  I  passed.  An  old  Squire  something  lives  in 
Llandough  Castle  close  at  hand,  a  little  behind  the  village.  Poor 
fellow  !  the  grave  of  his  old  wife  is  the  newest  in  Llandough 
Church-yard,  and  he  sits  solitaiy,  R.  says,  and  *  scolds  his  servants, 
being  a  proud  man.' 

The  14th  of  July  was  Mrs.  Carlyle's  birthday,  lie 
never  forgot  it  after  her  mother  died,  and  always  provided 
bonie  pretty  present  for  her.  He  enclosed  in  this  letter  an 
ornament  of  some  kind,  to  be  ready  for  the  day,  which, 
'  as  the  umbrella  went  aback,'  he  required  her  '  to  accept 
with  all  resignation.' 

July  15. 
Yesterday  passed  as  the  brightest,  beautifullest  day  in  the  whole 
year  might  do  in  these  circumstances.  I  had  an  excellent  four 
hours  till  two  o'clock,  then  an  excellent  solitaiy  gallop  to  the  soli- 
tary seashore,  a  dip  in  the  eternal  element  there,  and  gallop  back 
again.  The  world  was  all  bright  as  a  jewel  set  in  polished  silver 
and  sunshine,  the  sky  so  purified  by  the  past  day's  thunder.  The 
little  hamlet  of  Aberddaw,  a  poor  grey  clachan^  crouched  under  the 
shelter  of  a  kind  of  knoll,  the  half  of  which  was  eaten  sheer  off  by 
the  sea.  *  Poor  Aberddaw  !  '  I  said  to  myself,  '  thou  sittest  there, 
ill  enough  bested — God  help  thee ! '    The  bits  of  Welsh  women. 


260  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

with  their  cuddies,  higging  small  merchandise  about,  a  veiy  scrubby 
kind  of  figures,  seemed  highly  praiseworthy — humanly  pitiable  to 
me.  The  wood  is  so  beautiful  when  you  see  it  from  the  knoll-tops 
— soft,  green,  yet  shaggy  and  bushy — and  sunshine  kisses  all 
things  ;.  and  the  upper  moors  themselves — dull,  blunt,  hilly  regions 
— look  sapphire  in  the  distance.  At  my  return  to  dinner  Redwood 
produced,  instead  of  port,  a  bottle  of  excellent  claret,  and  said  we 
must  drink  Mrs.  Carlyle's  health,  as  it  was  her  birthday !  This 
fact  he  had  gathered  from  feeding  me  purchase  the  bit  of  riband 
for  a  band  for  the  said  Mrs.  C.  Well,  the  feat  accordingly  was 
done  ;  and  even  the  ancient  Quaker  mother  had  her  glass  filled, 
and  wished  *  many  happy  years  to  Jane  Carlyle,'  for  which  I  duly 
returned  thanks.  The  day  had  no  other  public  event  in  it.  R. 
made  me  sit  with  him  till  we  finished  the  bottle,  and  the  afiair  did 
me  no  harm  at  all,  rather  good. 

My  malison  on  this  glazed  paper,  on  this  detestable  leather  pen  ! 
The  world  gets  even  madder  with  its  choppings  and  changings  and 
never-ending  innovations,  not  for  the  better.  My  collars,  too, 
are  all  on  a  new  principle.  Oh  for  one  hour  of  Dr.  Francia !  But 
here  comes  our  great,  stalking  maid,  an  immensely  tall  woman  : 
'The  'oss  is  out,  sir.'  I  must  instantly  be  off.  Adieu,  with  my 
heart's  blessing  !  T.  Cablyle. 

In  relation  to  this  last  paragraph,  it  is  my  duty  to  say 
that  Carlyle  would  have  invoked  Dr.  Francia  on  a  wrong 
occasion ;  for  the  glazed  paper  in  question  is  now,  after 
forty  years,  in  perfect  condition, not  needing  smj malison- 
and  the  leather  pen  must  have  been  good,  too ;  for  the 
handwriting — even  for  Carlyle,  who  at  this  tiiiie  wrote 
most  beautifully — is  exceptionally  excellent. 

Llandough  :  July  16. 
Yet  a  few  last  words  before  quitting  this  place.  I  have  had,  as 
usual,  a  divine  forenoon,  lying  under  shady  trees  in  the  most  ex- 
quisite summer  atmosphere ;  and  then  a  most  lahorious  afternoon 
— bathing,  galloping,  dining,  talking,  till  now,  when  I  ought  to 
proceed  to  pack  and  arrange,  if  I  did  not  prefer  scribbling  to 
Goody  still  a  word  or  two.  .  .  .  To-moiTow  at  noon  I  shall 
have  to  be  on  the  roof  of  the  mail  at  Cowbridge  :  a  day  of  hot 
travel.  I  shall  certainly  not  again  be  lodged  so  quietly  anywhere. 
There  will  be  rapid  spiritual  conversation  in  the  Bishop's,  and  no 
green  tree  with  book  and  tobacco  to  lodge  under. 


Visit  to  Scnith  Wales,  261 

One  must  take  the  good  and  the  evil.  I  find  this  Redwood  a 
really  excellent  man ;  honest,  true  to  the  heart,  I  should  think, 
with  a  proud  and  i)ure  character  hidden  under  his  simplicity  and 
timidity.  He  has  been  entirely  hospitable  to  me,  is  sorry  that  I 
should  go,  speculates  on  my  coming  back,  &c.,  as  a  proximate 
event.  The  old  mother,  too,  is  very  venerable  to  me.  Poor  old 
woman  !  with  her  *  Yearly  Monitor,'  with  her  suet  dumplings,  and 
all  her  innocent  household  gods. 

Occasional  spurts  of  complaint  over  dulness  lie  scat- 
tered in  these  Llandougli  letters ;  but  Carlyle  knew  good 
people  when  he  saw  them.  The  Eedwoods  liad  left  him 
to  himself  with  unobtrusive  kindliness.  They  had  not 
shown  him  off  to  their  acquaintances.  They  had  thouglit 
only  what  they  could  do  for  the  comfoi-t  of  an  honoured 
guest — a  mode  of  treatment  very  different  from  what  he 
had  sometimes  experienced.  *  They  are  a  terrible  set  of 
fellows,'  he  said,  '  those  open-mouthed  wondering  gawpies, 
wlio  lodge  you  for  the  sake  of  looking  at  you :  that  is 
horrible.'  It  was  not,  however,  with  alarm  on  this  score 
that  he  entered  on  his  next  visiting  adventure.  He  would 
have  preferred  certainly  that  such  a  man  as  Thirlwall 
should  not  have  stooped  to  be  made  a  bishop  of,  but  he 
claimed  no  right  to  judge  a  man  who  was  evidently  of 
superior  quality.  How  far  he  actually  knew  Thirlwall's 
opinions  about  religion  I  cannot  say.  At  all  events,  he 
thought  he  knew  them.  Thirlwall  had  sought  Carlyle's 
acquaintance,  and  had  voluntarily  conveised  with  him  on 
serious  subjects.  Carlyle  was  looking  forward  now  with 
curiosity  to  see  how  a  man  who,  as  he  believed,  thought 
much  as  he  did  himself,  was  wearing  his  anomalous  dig- 
nities.    The  reader  wmII,  perhaps,  be  curious  also. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Abergwili,  Carmarthen  :  July  18,  1843. 
I  have  been  in  many  *  new  positions,*  but  this  of  finding  my- 
self in  a  bishop's  palace,  so  called,  and  close  by  the  chapel  founded 
by  old  scarecrow  Laud  of  famous  memory,  is  one  of  the  newest. 


262  Carlylis  Life  in  London. 

Expect  no  connected  account  of  the  thing,  nor  of  anything  what- 
ever to-day.  I  have  not  yet  learnt  the  airts  of  the  place  in  the 
least,  and  it  is  a  morning  of  pouiing  rain,  and  in  an  hour  (at  noon) 
the  brave  Bishop,  be  the  weather  what  it  may,  decides  on  riding 
with  me  '  four  hours  and  a  half '  through  the  wildest  scenery  of 
the  country,  that  it  may  not  suffer  through  the  tempestuous  nature 
of  the  elements.  The  post  will  be  gone  before  I  return  :  take  one 
word,  therefore,  to  assure  thee  that  I  am  alive,  comparatively 
speaking  well,  and  that  I  think  of  thee  here — here  very  especially, 
where  all  is  so  foreign  to  me.  Heavens  !  do  but  think  :  I  was 
awoke  before  seven  o'clock,  after  a  short  sleep,  by  a  lackey  coming 
in  in  haste  to  indicate  that  I  must  come  and  say  my  prayers  in 
Laud's  Chapel  of  St.  John.  I  did  go,  accordingly,  and  looked  at 
it  and  at  myself  with  wonder  and  amazement. 

Yesterday,  at  noon,  I  got  handsomely  away  from  Llandough. 
The  good  old  dame  desired  me  :  *  Thou  please  to  give  my  regards 
to  Mrs.  Carlyle.'  I  was  taken  in  the  *  tub '  to  Cowbridge,  and  then 
the  mail  came  up,  full  all  but  one  inside  seat.  I  had  to  take  that 
seat,  such  as  it  was,  the  rather  as  it  turned  out  there  was  to  be  a 
vacancy  on  the  roof  in  some  seventeen  miles  further.  It  was  very 
hot  and  disagreeable  inside  ;  a  huge  grazier  fast  asleep,  a  detest- 
able-looking parson  with  yellow  skin  and  jet-black  tattery  wig, 
and  an  old  burgher  of  the  town  of  Neath,  very  talkative,  very 
innocent.  To  this  latter  I  chiefly  attached  myself.  Neath  at  last 
came,  the  end  of  the  seventeen  miles,  and  I  got  out  and  had  a 
cigar,  and  saw  undeniably  clear  around  me  the  face  of  heaven  and 
earth — an  earth  very  tolerable,  sandstone  coal  country,  green  sharp 
hills  with  wood  enough,  green  fields  ill  ploughed  and  cultivated, 
houses  plastered  with  whitewash,  ridiculous  Welsh  bodies,  all  the 
women  of  them  now  with  men's  hats,  a  great  proportion  of  them 
looking  very  hungry  and  ragged.  Swansea,  enveloped  in  thick 
poisonous -copper  fumes,  and  stretching  out  in  winged  desolation 
(for  the  copper  forges  are  of  the  last  degree  of  squalor ;  low  huts, 
with  forests  of  chimneys,  and  great  mountains  of  red  dross,  which 
never  changes  into  soil),  is  a  very  strange  and  very  ugly  place. 
We  dined  there,  and  then  bowled  along  into  the  hills  of  the  in- 
terior— no  great  shakes  of  hills  ;  but  as  the  road  goes  over  the  top 
of  them  all,  it  makes  them  somewhat  impressive.  About  seven  in 
the  evening  we  plunged  down  by  a  steep  winding  way  into  the 
'  Valley  of  the  Towy,'  a  dim  enough  looking  valley  ;  for  there  was 
a  windy  Scotch  mist  by  that  time,*with  a  river  of  some  breadth  and 


# 


Stay  with  the  Bishop  of  St.  Da/vida.  263 

of  muddy  colour  running  through  it ;  and  a  little  farther  up,  a 
strange  bleared  mountain  city,  hanging  in  a  disconsolate  manner 
on  the  farther  bank  and  steep  declivity.  Carmarthen  at  last !  No 
bisJiop^s  carnage  was  waiting  for  me — ah,  no  1  I  hired  a  gig  and 
flunkey,  for  which,  to  this  distance  of  two  miles,  I  paid  five  shil- 
lings, and  one  and  sixpence  (to  driver) — six  shillings  and  sixpence 
in  all.     There  is  a  way  of  doing  business ! 

Abergwili  is  a  village  of  pitiful  dimensions,  all  daubed  as  usual 
with  whitewa.sh  and  yellow  ochre.  It  is  built,  however,  like  a 
common  village,  on  both  sides  of  the  public  road.  At  the  farther 
end  of  it,  you  come  to  solemn,  lai'ge,  closed  gates  of  wood ;  on 
your  shout  they  open,  and  you  enter  upon  a  considerable  glebe- 
land  jj/eostmce,  with  the  usual  trees,  turf  walks,  peacocks,  &c.,  and 
see  at  fifty  yards  distance  a  long,  irregular,  perhaps  C7*oss-shaped, 
edifice,  the  porch  of  it  surmounted  by  a  stone  mitre.     Ach  Golt  ! 

I  was  warmly  welcomed,  though  my  Bishop  did  seem  a  little 
uneasy  too  ;  but  how  could  he  help  it  ?  I  got  with  much  pomp 
an  extremely  bad  and  late  dish  of  tea,  then  plenty  of  good  talk  till 
midnight,  and  a  room  at  the  farther  wing  of  the  house,  still  as  the 
heart  of  wildernesses,  where,  after  some  smoking,  &c.,  I  did  at  last 
sink  into  sleep,  till  awakened  as  aforesaid. 

We  have  had  an  excellent  cup  of  tea  to  breakfast,  and  I  feel 
ready  for  a  bit  of  the  world's  fortune  once  more.  My  Bishop,  I 
can  discern,  is  a  right  solid  honest-hearted  man,  full  of  knowledge 
and  sense,  excessively  delicate  withal,  and,  in  spite  of  his  positive 
temper,  almost  timid.  No  wonder  he  is  a  little  embarrassed 
with  me,  till  he  feel  gradually  that  I  have  not  come  here  to 
eat  him,  or  make  scenes  in  his  still  house  !  But  we  are  getting, 
or  as  good  as  got,  out  of  that,  and  shall  for  a  brief  time  do  admir- 
ably well.  Here  is  medicine  for  the  soul,  if  the  body  fare  woi-se 
for  such  sumptuosities,  precisely  the  converse  of  Llandough.  It 
is  wholly  an  element  of  rigid,  decently  elegant  forms  that  we  live 
in.  Very  wholesome  for  the  like  of  me  to  dip  for  a  day  or  two 
into  that,  is  it  not  ?  For  the  rest,  I  have  got  two  otlier  novels  of 
Tieck,  of  which  the  admiring  Bishop  possesses  a  whole  stock. 

Oh,  I  do  hope  thou  wilt  write  to  me  this  day  !  I  feel  as  if  a 
little  friendly  speech,  even  about  *  Time  and  Space,'  with  my  poor 
Goody,  would  be  highly  consolatoiy  to  me.  To-night  I  shall  sleep 
better.  To-morrow  I  shall  be  more  at  home  ;  and  the  next  day — 
there  is  nothing  yet  settled  about  the  next  day. 

Coaches,  it  seems,  and  some  kind  of  straggling  chances  and  pos- 


264  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

sibilities  of  conveyance,  do  exist  till  one  gets  within  wind  of  Liv- 
erpool. I  think  of  persisting  by  this  route.  The  mountains  lie 
all  upon  it  which  one  is  bound  to  '  see.'  Oh,  my  dear  !  how  much 
richer  am  I  than  many  a  man  with  3, 000^.  a  year,  if  I  but  knew  it ! 
What  is  the  worth  of  Goody  herself,  thinkest  thou  ?  God  bless 
thee!  T.  Caelyle. 

Abergwih  :  July  19. 

I  am  very  conscientious  in  writing  to  you.  Here,  for  example, 
I  have  missed  viewing  the  city  of  Carmarthen  for  your  sake,  hav- 
ing, by  candid  computation  when  I  got  hither  to  my  own  room, 
found  that  I  could  not  write  to  you  if  I  went.  What  a  favour ! 
you  will  say.  Yes,  you  gipsy,  and  a  favour  to  myself  too.  Your 
letter  of  last  night  was  a  real  consolation  to  me.  I  have  lost  my 
libei^ty :  I  have  lost  my  sleep  :  I  am  in  a  baddish  way  here  ;  but  it 
will  soon  be  done.  From  vacuum  I  have  got  into  plenum  with  a 
vengeance.  What  with  chapel-duty,  riding  to  see  views,  talking 
with  the  brave  Bishop,  late  dining,  limited  tobacco,  and  flunkeys 
awaking  you  at  seven  in  the  morning  (the  very  terror  of  whom 
awakens  you  at  six),  it  is  a  business  one  needs  to  be  trained  to.  and 
that  is  not  worth  while  at  present. 

We  sallied  out  yesterday  in  the  midst  of  thick  rain  on  two 
horses.  Mine  was  the  highest  1  ever  rode,  bigger  fully  than  Dar- 
win's cabhorse.  We  rode  for  four  mortal  hours,  no  trotting  per- 
mitted, except  when  I,  contrary  to  all  politeness,  burst  off  into  a 
voluntario,  and  then  had  soon  to  lie  to  for  my  host,  who  rides  some- 
what ecclesiastically.  What  was  worse,  too,  my  high  horse  was  in 
the  fiercest  humour  for  riding,  and  I  longed  immensely  to  take  the 
temper  out  of  him.  But,  no  ;  we  plodded  away,  and  saw  a  circle 
of  views — views  very  good.  Valleys,  scrubby  or  woody  hills,  old 
churches,  and  ragged  Welsh  characters  in  torn  hats — all  very  good. 
But,  though  the  rain  abated  and  finally  subsided  into  mud  and 
soapy  dimness,  I  was  glad  enough  to  get  home.  To-day,  again, 
while  the  weather  is  bright,  we  are  to  renew  the  operation  at  three 
o'clock.  Well,  and  yet  I  am  very  glad  I  came  in  by  this  establish- 
ment, even  at  the  expense  of  sleep.  Nothing  similar  had  ever 
before  fallen  in  my  way,  and  it  was  worth  seeing  once.  Do  but 
think  of  a  wretched  scarecrow  face  of  Laud  looking  down  on  us  in 
Laud's  own  house,  that  once  was,  as  we  sit  at  meat.  And  there  is 
much  good  in  all  that,  I  see.  A  perfection  of  form  which  is  not 
without  its  value.     With  the  Bishop  himself,  I,  keeping  a  strict 


Stay  with  the  BiaJiop  of  St.  Davids.  205 

guard  on  my  mode  of  utterance,  not  mode  of  thinking,  get  on  ex- 
tremely well.  I  find  him  a  right  solid,  simple-hearted,  robust 
man,  very  strangely  swathed ;  on  the  whole,  right  good  company. 
And  so  we  fare  along  in  all  manner  of  discourse,  and  even  laugh  a 
good  deal  together.  Could  I  but  sleep  ! — but,  then,  I  never  can. 
I  had,  according  to  the  original  programme,  decided  to  be  oflf  to- 
morrow morning,  but  the  worthy  host  insists  with  such  an  earnest- 
ness that  I,  by  way  of  handsome  finish,  shall  be  obliged  to  put  off 
till  Friday  morning,  and  see  two  other  sleeps  still  before  me. 
Then,  however,  it  is  up.     I  see  my  route,  and  am  off. 

By  the  maturest  calculation,  it  seems  my  far  best  route  will  be 
north-eastward,  through  Brecknockshire  and  Monmouthshire,  to 
Gloucester,  Worcester,  Bii*mingham,  and  LiveiiDOol.  A  coach 
passes  here  to  Gloucester  in  one  day.  The  rest  of  it  is  railway. 
I  am  about  done  with  my  capacity  of  visiting  for  this  heat.  I 
shall  like  about  as  well  to  take  my  ease  at  my  inn.  Spending  the 
night  at  Gloucester,  I  shall  view  the  city  in  the  morning ;  a 
Cromwellian  place  that  I  wanted  this  long  wliile  to  see.  Then 
Worcester  in  like  manner,  till  the  railway  train  come  that  will 
take  me  to  Birmingham  arfd  Liverpool.     That  will  be  best. 

I  am  writing  too  much — I  will  end  now.  What  a  blessed 
rustle  among  these  green  trees,  on  that  sunny  lawn,  with  woods 
and  fields  and  hills  in  the  distance !  How  happy  could  I  be, 
would  all  the  world  except  one  small  cook's  assistant  fall  asleep 
and  leave  me  alone  with  Tieck's  *  Vogelscheuche '  I  We  are  in  an 
excellent  building  ;  long  galleries,  spacious  quiet  rooms,  all  softly 
carpeted,  furnished — room  enough  for  the  biggest  duke.  The 
mitre  does  not  exclude  soft  carpeting,  good  chee?-,  or  any  con- 
trivance for  comfort  to  the  outer  man.  X is  here ;  good- 
humoured,  entirely  polite,  drinks  well,  eats  well,  toadies  as  far  as 
l^ermitted,  turned  of  forty,  lean  and  yellow  ;  has  boiled  big  eyes, 
a  neck,  head,  and  nose  giving  you  a  notion  of  a  gigantic  human 
snipe.  Is  nob  that  a  beauty  ?  I  have  had  to  look  into  about  a 
thousand  books.  The  good  Bishop  is  simple  as  a  child.  We  are 
alone  all  but  the  snipe.  To-morrow  there  is  talk  of  a  judge  dining 
with  us.  Hang  it !  Perhaps  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  am 
to  be  kept  here. 

Oh  Goody,  I  send  thee  a  hundred  kisses.  I  have  much  need  to 
be  kissed  myself  by  a  Goody.     Adieu,  adieu. 

Ever  affectionate 

T.  Carltlb. 


266  Carlyle^  Life  in  London. 

Abergwili :  July  20. 

We  had  our  grand  dinner  last  night ;  a  judge' named  N ,  and 

about  twenty  advocates  ;  a  dreadful  explosion  of  dulness.  Cham- 
pagne and  ennui,  which,  however,  I  took  little  hand  in,  being  em- 
powered by  his  reverence  to  go  out  and  smoke  whenever  I  found 

it  dull.     N r,  first  fiddle  on  this  occasion,  was  a  man  that  I  had 

seen  at  the  Stanleys',  or  some  such  place,  playing  fourth  or  fifth 
fiddle.  The  advocates  generally  filled  me  with  a  kind  of  shudder. 
To  think  that  had  I  once  had  200/.  I  should  perhaps  have  been 
that !  One  of  them  named  Vaughan  pleased  me  not  a  little. 
They  all  went  ofi"  soon,  and  then  I  had  a  long  questionable  bout  of 
prints  to  front — sound  sleep  for  a  few  hours,  and  a  lackey  to 
awaken  you  at  half-past  six.  It  is  over  now,  all  that  lackeyism, 
thank  God !  The  Bishop  received  your  compliments  (did  I  tell 
you?)  with  much  modesty  and  gratitude,  mumbled  something 
about  you  being  here — how  happy,  &c.  He  has  been  most  kind  to 
me.  Poor  fellow  !  Think  of  a  solid  bishop  riding  post  as  he  had 
to  do  to-day.  It  was  literally  altogether  very  good.  Oar  talk  has 
been  extensive,  rather  interesting  occasionally,  always  worth  its 
kind,  or  nearly  so.  Peace  be  with  Abergwili,  and  may  it  be  a  while 
before  I  run  across  such  a  mass  of  form  again,  requiring  such  a 
curb-bridle  on  your  liberties  to  observe  them  rightly  !  For  what  we 
have  received  the  Lord  make  us  thankful.  Adieu,  dearest,  adieu 
— I  wish  I  were  with  thee.  T.  C. 

The  expression  '  strangely  swathed '  implies  that  he  had 
found  the  Bishop  not  entirely  sympathetic ;  and  perhaps 
he  had  not  remembered  sufficiently  how  beliefs  linger 
honestly  in  the  ablest  mind,  though  the  mode  of  thought 
be  fatally  at  variance  with  them. 

However  this  may  have  been,  the  visit  w^as  over,  and 
Carlyle  went  his  way.  His  plan  was  to  go  first  to  Glou- 
cester and  Worcester  to  look  at  the  battle-field  ;  afterwards 
to  go  to  Scotland,  through  Liverpool,  to  see  his  mother; 
then  to  make  a  tour  with  his  brother  John  in  E^orth 
Wales ;  and,  finally,  before  returning  to  London,  to  ex- 
amine the  ground  of  Oliver's  great  fight  at  Dunbar.  He 
w^as  in  good  spirits,  and  Ins  accounts  of  his  adventures  are 
characteristically  amusing.     He  had  spoken  of  taking  his 


A71  Inn  at  Gloitcester.  267 

ease  in  his  inn.  He  tried  it  first  at  tlie  Bell  Inn  at 
Gloucester,  which  he  found  to  be  '  a  section  of  Bedlam.' 
*  Sounds  of  harps-and  stringed  instruments,  ruffing  of  ap-' 
plausive  barristers  over  table  oratory  heard  at  a  distance, 
waiters  running  about  in  a  distracted  state;  liapless  bag- 
men either  preparing  to  go  off  "  by  mail,"  or  else  swallow- 
ing punch  in  the  hope  to  escape  their  wretchedness  by 
getting  drunk.'  *  He  had  felt  hap-hap-happy  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  then  he  was  meeserahle.^  Spite  of  all,  he  went  to 
bed  '  with  noble  defiance,'  and  slept  sounder  than  lie  ex- 
pected. But '  no  gladder  sight  had  he  seen  on  his  travels 
than  the  omnibus  in  the  morning  which  was  to  take  him 
out  of  the  Bell  Inn  for  all  time  and  all  eternity.'  '  The 
dirty  scrub  of  a  waiter,'  he  said,  *  grumbled  about  his  al- 
lowance, which  I  reckoned  liberal.  I  added  sixpence  to 
it,  and  produced  a  bow  which  I  was  near  rewarding  with 
a  kick.  .  .  .  Accursed  be  the  race  of  flunkeys  ! '  The 
boots  complained  next.  '  As  they  were  never  to  meet 
more  through  all  eternity,'  the  boots  was  allowed  a  second 
sixpence  also.  The  railway  train  carried  him  past  the 
hills  where  ^  the  Gloucester  Puritans  saw  Essex's  signal 
fires  and  notice  that  help  was  nigh.'  The  scene  of  the 
last  battle  of  the  Civil  War  was  to  have  a  closer  inspection. 
'  Worcester,'  he  writes,  '  was  three  miles  off  the  station 
westward.' 

I  rode  thither,  smoking,  by  the  London*  road,  and  was  set  down 
at  some  Crown  Inn,  vacant  of  customers,  to  a  most  blessed  break- 
fast of  coffee  and  ham  and  accompaniments,  a  considerable  *  Chris- 
tian com/oart.'  I  set  rapidly  out  to  explore  the  city.  From  Severn 
Bridge  I  could  see  the  ground  of  Oliver's  battle.  It  was  a  most 
brief  survey.  A  poor  labourer  whom  I  consulted  *  had  heard  of 
such  a  thing,'  wished  to  God  *  we  had  another  Oliver,  sir  ;  times 
is  dreadful  bad.'  I  spoke  with  the  poor  man  awhile  ;  a  shi'ewd, 
\\  ell-conditioned  fellow  ;  left  a  shilling  ^^dth  him,  almost  the  only 
good  deed  I  did  all  day.  In  the  railway  train  I  had  adventures  of 
ft  small  evil  kind  ;  two  men  to  quench  who  attempted,  pai*tly  by 


268  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

mistake,  to  use  me  ill.  They  proved  quencliable  without  difficulty ; 
for  indeed  I  myself  was  in  a  somewhat  snlphnrous  condition,  not 
laandy  to  quarrel  with.  One  of  them,  my  fellow-passenger  in  the 
railway,  took  it  into  his  head  to  smile  visibly  when  I  laid  off  my 
white  broadbrim,  and  suddenly  produced  out  of  my  jDocket  my 
grey  Glengarry.  He  seemed  of  the  mercantile  head-clerk  species, 
and  had  been  tempted  to  his  impropriety  by  a  foolish-looking, 
pampered  young  lady  in  tiger-skin  mantle  whom  he  seemed  to 
have  charge  of.  I  looked  straight  into  his  smiling  face  and  eyes ;  a 
look  which  I  suppose  inquired  of  him,  '  Miserable  ninth  part  of 
the  fraction  of  a  tailor,  art  thou  sure  that  thou  hast  a  right  to  laugh 
at  me  ? '  The  smile  instantly  died  into  another  expression  of  emo- 
tion. When  a  man  is  just  come  out  of  a  section  of  Bedlam,  and  has 
still  a  long  confused  journey  in  bad  weather  in  the  second-class 
train,  that  is  the  time  for  getting  himself  treated  with  the  respect 
due  to  genius. 

At  Liverpool  Carlyle  was  warmly  welcomed  by  liis 
wife's  uncle,  in  Maryland  Street.  He  found  his  brother 
John  waiting  for  him  there.  They  arranged  to  wait  where 
they  were  for  a  day  or  two,  and  then  to  make  their  expe- 
dition into  North  "Wales  together  before  the  days  began 
to  shorten.  "While  in  Liverpool  Carlyle  encountered  a 
person  then  much  talked  of,  whose  acquaintance  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle made  shortly  after  in  a  striking  manner  in  London.' 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Liverpool :  July  24. 
Passing  near  some  Catholic  chapel,  and  noticing  a  great  crowd 
in  a  yard  there,  with  flags,  white  sticks,  and  brass  bands,  we 
stopped  our  hackney-coachman,  stepped  forth  into  the  thing, 
and  found  it  to  be  Father  Mathew  distributing  the  temperance 
pledge  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  place,  thousands  strong,  of  both 
sexes — a  very  ragged,  lost-looking  squadron  indeed.  Father  M. 
is  a  broad,  solid,  most  excellent-looking  man  with  grey  hair,  mild 
intelligent  eyes,  massive,  rather  aquiline  nose  and  countenance. 
The  very  face  of  him  attracts  you.  .  .  .  We  saw  him  go  through 
a  whole  act  of  the  business,  '  do,'  as  Darwin  would  say,  '  an  entire 
batch  of  teetotallers.'  I  almost  cried  to  listen  to  him,  and  could 
not  but  lift  my  broadbrim  at  the  end,  when  he  called  for  God's 
"  Letters  and  Memorials,  vol.  i.  p.  165. 


I 


Liverpool,  269 

blessing  on  the  vow  these  poor  wretches  had  taken.  ...  I 
have  seen  nothing  so  religious  since  I  set  out  on  my  travels  as  the 
squalid  scene  of  this  day — nay,  nothing  properly  religious  at  all ; 
though  I  have  been  in  Laud's  chapel  and  heard  daily  with  damn- 
able iteration  of  '  the  means  of  gi*ace  and  the  hope  of  glory  '  from 
that  portentous  human  snipe.  Not  a  bad  fellow  either,  poor  devil ! 
But  we  are  in  a  dreatiful  mess  as  to  all  that ;  and  even  a  strong 
}3ishop  Thirlwall  constitutes  himself  a  Macready  of  Episcopacy  as 
the  best  he  can  do,  and  does  it  uncommonly  well ;  and  is  *  a  strong- 
minded  man,  sir,'  and  a  right  worthy  man  in  his  unfortunate  kind. 
.     .     .     God  bless  thee,  and  so  ends 

Thy  unfortunate  T.  C. 

The  Xorth  "Wales  tonr  was  brief.  The  brothers  went 
in  a  steamer  from  Livei'pool  to  Bangor,  and  thence  to 
Llanberis,  again  in  a  '  tub-gig,'  or  Welsh  car.  They  trav- 
elled light,  for  Carlyle  took  no  baggage  with  him  except  a 
razor,  a  shaving-brush,  a  shirt,  and  a  pocket-comb  ;  '  tooth- 
bi-ush '  not  mentioned,  but  we  may  hope  forgotten  in  the 
inventory.  They  slept  at  Llanberis,  and  the  next  day 
went  up  Snowdon.  The  summit  was  thick  in  mist.  They 
met  two  other  parties  there  coming  up  from  the  other  side 
of  the  mountain  '  like  ghosts  of  parties  escorted  by  their 
Charons.'  They  descended  to  Beddgelert,  and  thence  drove 
down  to  Tremadoc,  where  they  were  entertained  by  a  Lon- 
don friend,  one  of  the  Chorleys,  who  had  a  house  at  that 
place.  Carlyle  began  to  feel  already  that  he  had  had 
enough  of  it,  to  tire  of  his  *  tossings  and  tumblings,'  and 
to  find  that  he  did  not  '  at  the  bottom  care  twopence  for 
all  the  picturesqueness  in  the  world.'  One  night  sufficed 
for  Tremadoc.  They  returned  thence  straight  to  Liver- 
pool, and  were  again  in  Maryland  Street  on  August  1. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  had  been  suffering  from  heat  and  her  ex- 
ertions in  house  repairs,  and  her  husband  thought  it  pos- 
sible that  he  might  take  a  seaside  lodging  at  Formby,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mersey,  where  they  could  remain  to- 
gether for  the  rest  of  the  summer.     Formby  had  the  ad- 


270  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

vantage  of  being  near  Seaforth,  where  the  Panlets  lived, 
with  whom.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  already  become  intimate. 
Mr.  Paulet  was  a  merchant,  a  sensible,  well-informed,  good 
kind  of  man.  Mrs.  Paulet,  young,  gifted,  and  beautiful, 
was  one  of  Carlyle's  most  enthusiastic  admirers.  The 
neighbourhood  of  such  friends  as  these  was  an  attraction  ; 
but  the  place  when  examined  into  was  found  desolate  and 
shelterless.  The  experiment  of  lodgings  at  ]N''ewby  had 
not  been  successful,  so  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  left  to  take  care 
of  herself,  which  she  was  well  able  to  do,  and  her  husband 
made  off  for  Scotland  by  his  usual  sea  route  to  Annan. 
Misadventures  continued  to  persecute  him  on  his  travels, 
or  rather  travelling  itself  was  one  persistent  misadventure, 
for  he  could  never  allow  for  the  necessities  of  things.  The 
steamer,  to  begin  with,  left  Liverpool  at  three  in  the  morn- 
ing. When  he  went  on  board  '  it  was  chaos,  cloud}^  dim, 
bewildered,  like  a  nasty,  damp,  clammy  dream  of  confu- 
sion, dirt,  impediment,  and  general  nightmare.'  In  the 
morning  there  was  some  amendment.  He  could  meditate 
on  his  own  condition,  and  find  an  idyll  in  the  story  of 
another  passenger. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  August  5,  1843. 
The  voyage,  thanks  to  a  bright  sunshine  all  day,  was  far  more 
tolerable  than  it  promised  to  be.  Nay,  in  spite  as  it  were  of  very 
fate,  I  snatched  some  five  hours  of  sleep  at  various  dates.  I  on 
the  whole  fared  well  enough.  My  poor  native  Annandale  never 
looked  so  impressive  to  me  that  I  remember  :  black  rain  curtains 
all  around — but  there  when  I  saw  it  a  kind  of  bewept  brightness. 
All  seemed  so  small,  remote,  eternally  foreign ;  I  said  to  myself, 
'  There  among  these  poor  knolls  thy  life  journeyings  commenced, 
my  man !  there  didst  thou  begin  in  this  outskirt  of  creation,  and 
thou  hast  wandered  very  far  since  then — far  as  Eternity  and 
Hades,  so  to  speak,  since  then.  Nobody  was  there  to  receive  me. 
I  got  a  kind  of  gig  at  Benson's  inn  and  came  hither  to  kind  wel- 
come, to  dinner,  tea,  and  sleep  all  in  the  lump  almost.  My  de- 
termination is  to  rest  here  for  a  space.     I  feel  quite  smashed, 


i 


Retreat  in  Annandale,  271 

done  up,  and  pressingly  in  need  to  pause  and  do  nothing  what- 
ever. I  have  spread  out  my  things.  I  sit  in  the  little  easternmost 
room  sacred  from  interruption.  I  will  rest  now.  My  poor  mother 
is  very  cheeiy,  but  very  pale,  thin,  and  has  evidently  been  suffer- 
ing much  since  I  saw  her.  Jamie  goes  on  in  the  old  cheerfully 
stoical  manner  in  these  worst  of  times. 

I  declare  I  am  veiy  sorry  for  all  people.  Yesterday  was  an  old, 
dirty,  feckless-looking  man,  in  tattered  straw  hat,  sitting  in  the 
steamer ;  notable  to  me  all  day.  At  night  a  nigged,  hearty  kind 
of  old  woman  came  on  deck,  who-  proved  to  be  his  wife.  They 
had  been  in  America,  where  all  their  children,  eleven  in  number, 
were  bom  ;  *  but  the  auld  man,  ye  see,  wadna  bide,*  though  they 
had  sent  for  him  ;  and  so  here  he  was  with  his  old  dame  come  daun- 
dering  back  again  to  beggaiy  and  the  Hawick  native  soil !  Poor 
old  devil !  I  was  heartily  sorry  for  him  and  the  sturdy  old  wife. 
I  honoured  her  as  a  tnie  heart  of  oak,  the  mainstay  of  her  old  man, 
who  grinned  intelligence  as  he  saw  Scotch  land  again.  Their 
goods  were  in  certain  duddy  pokes,  and  one  painted  chest  of 
which  the  woman  carried  the  key.  Her  sturdy  way  of  undoing 
the  padlock  had  first  attracted  my  attention  to  her.  Is  not  life  a 
*  joyous  '  kind  of  thing  to  this  old  woman?  '  I  declare  I'se  quite 
shamed,'  she  said,  *  to  gang  hame  sa  dirty  ;  a's  dirty,  and  I  could 
get  nothing  washed.' 

Oh  Goody,  why  do  I  twaddle  to  thee  about  all  and  sundry  in 
this  manner  ?  Really  silence  would  be  preferable,  and  the  saving 
of  a  penny  stamp. 

He  lay  still  for  a  month  at  Scotsbrig  doing  nothing 
save  a  little  miscellaneous  reading,  and  hiding  himself 
from  human  sight.  These  few  letters  and  fragments  will 
serve  as  a  specimen  of  many  written  during  this  period  of 
eclipse. 

To  Jane  Wehh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  August  16,  1843. 
I  have  no  appetite  for  writing,  for  si>eaking,  or  in  short  doing 

anything  but  sitting  still  as  a  stone,  while  that  is  conceded  me 

Confound  it !  Here  are  two  beggarly  people  from  Ecclefechan 
come  driving  in  a  gig  in  probable  search  for  me.  May  the  Devil 
give  them  luck  of  it !  I  hope  Jenny  will  gulp  a  lie  (door  lie)  for 
my  sake.     I  will  wait  perdu  and  fling  down  the  pen  till  I  see. 


272  Caflyle^s  Life  in  London. 

No ;  Jenny  had  not  the  sense  to  make  a  white  lie  for  me,  and  I 
had  to  enter.  A  poor  West  Indies  bilious  youth  home  for  his 
health  '  extremely  desirous  to  see  me  '  (many  thanks  to  him),  '  just 
called  with  his  father.'  I  have  given  them  whisky  and  w'ater  and 
sent  them  on  their  way.     There  is  no  rest  for  the  wicked. 

Here  it  is  as  hot  as  Demerara,  windless,  with  a  burning  sun.  I 
am  lazy  in  addition  to  all.  Lazy  as  I  almost  never  was.  Work, 
past  or  future,  not  to  speak  of  present,  is  a  weariness  to  me.  I 
sometimes  think  of  Cromwell.  Oh  heavens !  I  shall  need  to  be 
in  another  mood  than  now.  I  must  take  new  measui'es.  This  will 
never  do. 

The  tailor  has  turned  me  out  two  pairs  of  trousers  ;  ^  has  two 
winter  waistcoats  and  much  else  in  progress.  I  find  nothing 
wrong  but  the  Dumfries  buttons  yet,  which  I  have  duly  execrated 
and  flung  aside.  Poor  hunger-ridden,  quack-ridden  Dumfries  ! 
Wages  yesterday  at  Lockerbie  fair  '  were  lower  than  any  man  ever 
saw  them.'  A  harvestman  coming  hither  for  five  weeks  is  to  have 
one  sovereign.  A  weaker  individual  works  through  the  same 
period  for  15s.  or  12.s-.  6c/. ,  according  as  he  proves.  The  latter  is  a 
shoemaker's  apprentice,  who  has  harv^est  granted  to  him,  to  earn 
his  year's  apparel.  Ruin  by  sliding  scales  and  other  conveyances 
slides  rajjidly  on  all  men. 

Last  afternoon  I  had  a  beautiful  walk  on  the  Dairland  Hills 
moor.  A  little  walking  shakes  away  my  sluggishness.  The  bare 
expanse  of  silent  green  upland  is  round  me,  far  off  the  world  of 
mountains,  and  the  sea  all  changed  to  silver.  Out  of  the  dusky 
sunset — for  vapours  had  fallen — the  windows  of  Carlisle  city 
glanced  visibly  upon  me  ;  tw^enty  thousand  human  bipeds  whom  I 
could  cover  with  my  hat.  On  these  occasions,  unfortunately,  I 
think  almost  nothing.  Vague  dreams,  delusions,  idle  reminis- 
cences, and  confusions  are  all  that  occupy  me.  I  am  an  unprofit- 
able servant. 

I  have  taken  up  with  a  biography  of  Ralph  Erskine,  the  first  of 
'CciQ  Seceders.  It  is  absolutely  very  strange.  A  long,  soft,  poke- 
cheeked  face,  with  busy,  anxious  black  eyes,  *  looking  as  if  he 
could  not  help  it ; '  and  then  such  a  character  and  form  of  human 
existence,  conscience  living  to  the  fingers-ends  of  him  in  a  strange, 
venerable,  though  highly  questionable  manner !  There  have  been 
strange  men  in  this  world ;  and   indeed   every   man   is   strange 

^  Carlyle  had  his  clothes  made  at  Ecclefechan,  partly  for  economy,  partly 
because  he  could  not  believe  in  the  honesty  of  London  work. 


Anncmdcde  Anecdotes.  2T3 

eDough.  This  Ralph  makes  me  reflect,  "Whitherward  are  we  now 
bound  ?  "What  has  become  of  all  that  ?  Is  man  grown  into  a  kind 
of  brute  that  can  merely  spin  and  make  railways  ? '  *  Mir  wiire 
liebet'  class  ich  pldtzlich stiirbe* 

Again,  a  day  or  two  later : — 

The  reading  of  Ralph  Erskine  has  given  me  strange  reflections 
as  to  the  profoundly  enveloped  state  in  which  all  sons  of  Adam 
live.  .  .  .  This  poor  Ralph,  and  his  formulas  casing  him  all 
round  like  the  shell  of  a  beetle.  "What  a  thing  it  is  I  And  yet 
what  better  have  the  rest  of  us  made  of  it?  Far  worse  most  of  us 
in  our  Benthamisms,  Jacobinisms,  George  Sandisms.  Man  is  a 
bom  owl.  I  consider  it  good,  however,  that  one  do  not  get  into 
the  state  of  a  beetle,  that  one  try  to  keep  one's  shell  open,  or  at 
least  openable.     I  mean  to  persist  in  endeavouring  that. 

The  lives  of  all  men  in  all  ranks,  places,  and  times  have 
their  tragedy,  their  comedy,  their  romance  in  them ;  and 
are  at  once  poetical,  if  there  is  a  man  of  genius  at  hand  to 
observe,  especially  if  he  have  radical  fire  in  him.  Human 
creatures  love,  hate,  have  their  pride  and  their  passions, 
do  wrong  and  sufFer  wrong,  wlierever  they  are.  Here  are 
two  small  pictures  from  peasant  life  in  Annandale,  as 
Carlyle  saw  it  in  1843  : — 

August  21. 
A  poor  slut  of  a  man,  Jamie's  next  neighbour  here,  has  a  farm 
too  dear,  deficient  stock,  arrears  of  rent,  with  all  manner  of  soitow- 
ful  et  cseteras,  and  hangs  of  late  years  continually  on  the  verge  of 
ruin.  He  is  fumed  of  foiiy — a  great,  heavy,  simple,  toilsome  lump 
of  nut-brown  innocency ;  has  wife  and  children ;  an  old  mother, 
stone-blind,  who  'milks  all  the  cows.'  His  soul's  first  care  is  to 
raise  100/.  annually  for  his  landlord  to  buy  port  wine  or  whisky 
with.  According  to  the  lex  terrce  as  it  at  present  stands,  they  can 
strip  him  to  the  skin  any  time  for  past  aiTears,  but  prefer  to  let 
him  struggle  along,  •  doing  his  best.'  At  this  last  rent-day  he  was 
nearly  out  of  his  wits,  Jamie  says.  The  com  he  meant  to  sell  was 
not  ripe  enough  for  selling ;  the  bare  bent  or  the  inside  of  a  gaol 
his  only  other  outlook.  For  ten  days  he  rode  and  i-an,  '  sleeping 
none,'  or  hardly  sleeping.  By  Jamie's  help  he  did  at  length  get 
the  50/.  ready.  He  paid  it  duly,  got  on  his  horse  to  come  home 
again,  had  a  stroke  of  apoplexy  by  the  way,  arrived  home  still 
Vol.  UI.— 18 


274  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

sticking  to  his  horse,  but  unable  to  speak  or  walk,  and  has  walked 
or  spoken  none  since.  What  a  joyous  existence  his  !  And  that  old 
stone-blind  mother !  We  are  very  despicable  drivellers  to  make 
any  moan.     Oh  heavens  !  can  that  be  the  tarsk  of  an  immortal  soul, 

catching  apoplexy  to  provide  whisky  for of ?     Je  me 

suis  dit  unjour,  cela  n'est  pas  juste.  No,  it  is  not,  and  by  God's  help 
shall  not  be  held  so. 

August  30. 
I  must  tell  you  another  thing  I  heard  which  struck  me  consid- 
erably. You  remember  a  lump  of  an  old  woman,  half  haveral,i 
half  genius,  called  Jenny  Fraser.  The  '  Duke '  had  decided  on 
high  that  not  an  inch  of  ground  should  be  allowed  for  a  'non- 
intrusion '  church  in  that  region.  No  church  shall  there  or  there- 
abouts be.  It  is  paltry  to  stop  the  mouths  of  men  that  observe 
any  measure  in  their  complainings — very  poor,  even  if  a  Duke  had 
made  all  the  land  he  refuses  to  concede  a  few  yards  of.  Well ;  but 
old  Jenny  Fraser  possesses  about  Boatford  a  patch  of  ground  in- 
dependent of  all  persons,  just  about  equal  to  holding  a  church  and 
its  eavesdrops,  and  says  she  will  give  it.  Hunter  of  Merton  Mill 
and  agents  are  at  work.  Go  to  Jenny,  offer  her  101. ,  201.;  indicate 
possibilities  of  perhaps  more.  Jenny  is  deaf  as  whinstone,  though 
poor  nearly  as  Job.  She  answers  always,  '  I  got  it  from  the  Lord, 
and  I  will  give  it  to  the  Lord.'  And  there,  it  seems,  the  Free 
Kirk,  in  spite  of  Duke  and  Devil,  is  to  be.  I  had  a  month's  mind 
to  go  and  give  Jenny  a  sovereign  myself ;  but  I  remembered  two 
things :  first,  that  she  had  for  some  reason  or  other  become  a 
stranger  to  her  former  benefactress  [Mrs.  Carlyle  herself?],  and 
then,  secondly,  it  might  have  a  factious  look,  bettei-  to  avoid  at 
that  moment ;  we  can  do  it  better  afterwards,  and  I  can  hear  your 
opinion  withal — '  Duke  versus  Jenny  Fraser  !  '  it  is  as  ridiculous  a 
conjecture  as  has  happened  lately.  These  poor  people,  living 
under  their  Duke  in  secret  spleen  and  sham  loyalty,  are  somewhat 
to  be  pitied.  '  The  earth's  the  Lord's  and  no  the  Duke's,'  as 
Charlie  Eae  said. 

This  little  story  is  worth  preserving  as  part  of  the 
history  of  the  Free  Kirk,  independently  of  Carlyle's  com- 
ments. Jenny  Fraser  was  a  true  daughter  of  the  Cove- 
nanters. 

Carlyle's  time  in  the  l^orth  was  running  out ;  he  had 

*  Haveraly  a  half-witted  peiBon. 


Crawford  Churchyard,  275 

still  to  see  Dunbar  battle-field,  and  he  had  arranged  his 
movements  that  he  should  see  it  on  Oliver's  own  3rd  of 
September,  the  day  of  the  Dunbar  fight,  the  day  of  the 
Worcester  fight,  and  the  day  of  his  death.  One  or  two 
small  duties  remained  to  be  discharged  first  in  Dumfries- 
shire. His  wife  had  asked  him  to  go  once  more  to  Thorn- 
liill  and  Templand  to  see  after  her  mother's  old  servants, 
and  to  visit  also  the  grave  in  Crawford  Churchyard.  To 
Crawford  he  was  willing  to  go ;  from  Templand  he  shrank 
as  too  painful.  In  leaving  it,  he  thought  that  he  had  bid 
adieu  to  the  old  scenes  for  ever.  Still  this  and  anything 
he  was  ready  to  undertake  if  it  would  give  her  any  pleas- 
ure. Most  tender,  most  afl^ectionate,  were  the  terms  in 
which  he  gave  his  promise  to  go.  lie  did  go.  He  distrib- 
uted presents  among  the  old  people,  who  in  Mrs.  Welsh  had 
lost  their  best  friend.  Finally,  he  went  also  to  the  church- 
yard, seeing  Thornhill  a  second  time  on  the  way. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Edinburgh :  September  2. 
As  the  mail  was  to  start  from  Dumfries  at  six  o'clock  without 
pause  by  the  way,  I  preferred  the  heavy  coach  yesterday  at  nine. 
It  took  me  by  Thornhill,  &c.  I  had  not  duly  calculated  on  that ; 
and  yet  who  knows  but  a  day  of  such  sad  solemnity  spent  in  utter 
silence,  though  painful  exceedingly,  was  worth  enduring.  Nobody 
knew  me.  I  sate  two  minutes  in  Thornhill  Street,  unsuspected  by 
all  men,  a  kind  of  ghost  among  men.  The  day  was  windless  :  the 
eai'th  all  still :  grey  mist  rested  on  the  tops  of  the  green  hills,  the 
vacant  brown  moors  :  silence  as  of  eternity  rested  over  the  world. 
It  was  like  a  journey  through  the  kingdoms  of  the  dead,  one  Hall 
of  Spirits  till  I  got  past  Crawford.  ...  I  was  as  a  spirit  in 
the  land  of  spirits,  called  land  of  the  living.  ...  At  Crawford 
I  was  on  a  sacred  spot,  one  of  the  two  sacredest  in  all  the  world — 
I  was  at  the  grave.  I  tried  at  first  to  gain  as  much  time  on  the 
coach  [as  was  needed].  This  being  impossible,  the  good-natured 
driver  offered  to  wait.  In  my  life  I  have  had  no  more  unearthly 
moment.  Perhaps  it  was  not  right,  though  doubtless  you  will 
thank  me.     At  any  rate,  I  could  not  decide  to  pass.     Oh  heavens ! 


276  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

and  all  so  silent  there,  smoothed  into  the  repose  of  God^s  eternity  ; 
and  the  hills  look  on  it,  and  the  skies,  and  I  thought  how  blessed 
all  that  was,  beyond  the  dreary  sorrows  and  agitations  of  all  this. 
Why  should  I  dwell  on  such  a  matter  ?  I  mean  to  go  and  see  your 
brave  father's  grave,  too,  and  I  will  speak  no  word  about  it — you 
shall  hold  it  done  without  my  speaking. 

This  was  written  from  Edinburgh  on  September  2.  Tlie 
3rd  was  to  be  given  to  Dunbar,  and  along  with  Dunbar 
was  to  be  combined  the  pilgrimage  to  that  last  solemn  spot 
to  which  he  referred  with  so  fine  delicacy.  Without  stay- 
ing to  see  any  Edinburgh  acquaintance  except  David  Laing, 
he  went  on  direct  to  Haddington,  where  he  was  to  be  the 
guest  of  his  wife's  old  and  dear  friends,  the  Miss  Donald- 
sons of  Sunny  Bank.  The  thoughts  which  he  had  brought 
from  Crawford  attended  him  still  as  he  came  among  the 
scenes  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  childhood,  where  he  and  she  had 
first  looked  in  each  other's  faces. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Haddington :  September  4,  1843. 
These  two  days  the  image  of  my  dear  little  Jeannie  has  hovered 
incessantly  about  me,  waking  and  sleeping,  in  a  sad  yet  almost 
celestial  manner,  like  the  spirit,  I  might  say,  of  a  beautiful  dream. 
These  were  the  streets  and  places  where  she  ran  about,  a  merry, 
eager  little  fairy  of  a  child  :  and  it  is  all  gone  away  from  her  now, 
and  she  from  it :  and  of  all  her  possessions,  poor  I  am,  as  it  were, 
all  that  remains  to  her.  My  dearest,  while  I  live,  one  soul  to  trust 
in  shall  not  be  wanting.  My  poor  little  Jeannie !  How  solemn  is 
this  Hall  of  the  Past,  beautiful  and  mournful ;  the  miraculous  river 
of  existence  rolling  its  grand  course  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  most 
prophetic  places,  now  even  as  of  old ;  godlike,  though  dark  with 
death. 

Carlyle  feeling  and  writing  with  such  exquisite  tender- 
ness, and  Carlyle  a  fortnight  later  when  he  was  in  Cheyne 
Row  making  a  domestic  earthquake  and  driving  his  wife 
distracted  because  a  piano  sounded  too  loud  in  the  adjoining 
house^  are  beings  so  different,  that  it  seemed  as  if  his  soul 


Dunbar  Battlefield.  277 

was  divided,  like  tlie  Dioscuri,  as  if  one  part  of  it  was  in 
heaven,  and  the  otlier  in  the  place  opposite  to  heaven. 
But  the  misery  had  its  origin  in  the  same  sensitiveness  of 
nature  which  was  so  tremulously  alive  to  soft  and  delicate 
emotion.  Men  of  genius  have  acuter  feelings  than  com- 
mon men  ;  they  are  like  the  wind-harp,  which  answers  to 
the  breath  that  touches  it,  now  low  and  sweet,  now  rising 
into  wild  swell  or  angry  scream,  as  the  strings  are  swept  by 
some  passing  gust. 

The  rest  of  this  letter  describes  the  expedition  to  Dun- 
bar, and  is  written  at  a  more  ordinary  pitch.  September 
3  was  a  Sunday. 

No  coaches  going  to  Dunbar  on  that  day,  I  had  to  resolve  on 
doing  the  thing  by  walking.  Before  quitting  Edinburgh,  I  had 
gone  to  David  Laing,  and  refreshed  all  my  recollections  by  look- 
ing at  his  books,  one  of  which  he  even  lent  me  out  hither.  Forti- 
fied with  all  studies  and  other  furtherances,  I  took  a  stick  from 
the  lobby  here  and  set  forth  about  half-past  nine ;  the  morning 
grey  and  windy,  wind  straight  in  my  back.  To  Linton  the  walk 
was  delightful ;  the  rich  autumn  country  and  Sabbath  solitude 
altogether  solacing  to  me.  At  Linton,  a  shoal,  or  rather  endless 
shoals,  of  ragged  Irish  reapers  made  the  highway  thenceforth  too 
populous  for  me.  Indeed,  between  Musselburgh  and  Dunbar  they 
have  made  all  thoroughfares  a  continued  Donnybrook,  every 
variety  of  ragged  savagery  and  squalor — the  finest  peasantry  in  the 
world.  There  is  not  work  for  a  fourth  part  of  them — wages  one 
shilling  a  day.  They  seemed  to  subsist  on  the  plunder  of  turnips 
and  beanfields.  They  did  not  beg  :  only  asked  me  now  and  then 
for  '  the  toime,  plaise  sur,'  seeing  I  had  a  watch.  It  was  curious 
to  see  at  Linton  the  poor  remnant  of  Highland  shearers  all  lying 
decently  in  rows  on  the  green,  while  the  Irish  were  hovering  they 
knew  not  whitlier,  without  plan,  without  repose. 

At  Dunbar  I  found  the  battle-ground  much  more  recognisable 
than  any  I  had  yet  seen  ;  indeed,  altogether  what  one  would  call 
clear.  It  is  at  the  foot  and  further  eastward  along  the  slope  of  the 
hill  they  call  the  doun  that  the  Scots  stood,  Cromwell  at  Brox- 
mouth  (Duke  of  Roxburghe's  place),  where  he  *  saw  the  sun  rise 
over  the  sea,'  and  quoted  a  certain  Psalm.  I  had  the  conviction 
that  I  stood  on  the  veiy  ground.     Having  time  to  spare  (for  din- 


278  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

ner  was  at  six),  I  surveyed  the  old  Castle,  washed  my  feet  in  the 
sea — smoking  the  while — took  an  image  of  Dunbar  with  me  as  I 
could,  and  then  set  my  face  to  the  wind  and  the  storm,  which  had 
by  this  time  risen  to  a  quite  tempestuous  pitch.  No  rougher  work 
have  I  had  for  a  long  time,  boring  through  it  with  my  broadbrim, 
not  perpendicular  to  it ;  face  parallel  to  the  highway — that  was  the 
only  possible  method,  except  sometimes  that  I  set  the  broadbrim 
on  my  breast  and  walked  bare-headed  ;  the  only  ill  effect  of  which 
is  that  is  has  filled  my  hair  with  sand  till  the  sea-Avater  wash  it 
cut  again. 

Duties  all  finished,  there  remained  now  to  get  back  to 
Chelsea.  The  cheapest,  and  to  Carlyle  the  pleasantest, 
way  was  by  sea.  A  day  could  be  given  to  Edinburgh,  two 
to  the  Ferguses  at  Kirkcaldy.  Thence  he  could  go  to  Mr. 
Erskine  and  staV  at  Linlathen  till  the  15th,  when  a  steamer 
would  sail  for  Dundee.  After  the  sight  of  the  battle- 
fields, tlie  '  Cromwell '  enterprise  seemed  no  longer  impos- 
sible. He  was  longing  to  be  at  home  and  at  work  ;  '  at 
home  with  Goody  and  her  new  house  and  her  old  heart.' 
The  boat  would  be  forty -five  hours  on  the  w^ay.  He  would 
be  at  Chelsea  by  the  19th,  and  '  his  long  pilgrimage  be 
ended.'  He  had  seen  many  things  in  the  course  of  it,  but 
'  nothing  half  as  good  as  his  own  Goody.'  In  the  most 
amiable  mood  he  called  on  everyone  that  he  knew  in  Edin- 
bm-gh — called  on  his  wife's  aunts  at  Morningside,  called  on 
Jeffrey  at  Craigcrook,  to  whom  he  was  always  grateful  as 
his  first  active  friend. 

I  found  him  (he  says)  somewhat  in  a  deteriorated  state.  The 
little  Duke  had  lamed  his  shin  ;  sate  lean,  disconsolate,  irritable, 
talkative,  and  argumentative  as  ever,  with  his  foot  laid  on  a  stool. 
Poor  old  fellow  !  I  talked  with  him  chiefly  till  two  o'clock,  and 
then  they  drove  me  off  in  their  carriage. 

The  days  with  Erskine  in  his  quiet  house  at  Linlathen 
were  an  enjoyment  and  amusement.  Erskine  officiating 
as  a  country  gentleman,  as  chief  commander  of  a  squire's 
mansion,  was  a  novel  spectacle,  the  most  gentle  of  men 


Eiid  of  Summer  Tour,  279 

and  yet  obliged  to  put  on  the  air  of  anthority,  and  *  doing 
it  dreadfully  ill/  But  Carlyle's  thoughts  were  riveted  on 
home.  He  had  been  irritable  and  troublesome  before  he 
went  away  in  the  summer.  He  was  returning  with  the 
sense  that  in  Cheyne  Row  only  was  paradise,  where  he 
would  never  be  impatient  again. 

Oh  Goody !  (he  exclaimed  in  his  last  letter)  I  wish  I  was  with 
thee  again.  We  will  go  into  a  room  together,  and  have  a  little 
talk  about  time  and  space.  Thou  wilt  hardly  know  me  again.  I 
am  brown  as  a  berry,  face  and  hands  ;  terribly  bilious — sick  even, 
yet  with  a  feeling  that  there  is  a  good  stock  of  new  liealth  in  me 
had  I  once  leave  to  subside.  Courage !  in  a  few  hours  more  it 
will  be  done. 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

A.D.  1843-4.     ^T.  48-49. 

A  repaired  house— Beginnings  of  'Cromwell' — Difficulties — The 
Edinburgh  students — Offer  of  a  professorship — The  old 
mother  at  Scotsbng — Lady  Harriet  Baring — A  day  at  Addis- 
combe — Birthday  present — Death  of  John  Sterling. 

Alas  for  the  infirmity  of  mortal  resolution !  Between  the 
fool  and  the  man  of  genius  there  is  at  least  this  symptom 
of  their  common  humanity.  Carlyle  came  home  with  the 
fixed  determination  to  be  amiable  and  good  and  make  his 
wife  happy.  'No  one  who  reads  his  letters  to  her  can 
doubt  of  his  perfect  confidence  in  her,  or  of  his  childlike 
affection  for  her.  She  was  the  one  person  in  the  world 
besides  his  mother  whose  character  he  completely  admired, 
whose  judgment  he  completely  respected,  whose  happiness 
he  was  most  anxious  to  secure  ;  but  he  came  home  to 
drive  her  immediately  distracted,  not  by  unkindness — ^for 
unkind  he  could  not  be — but  through  inability  to  endure 
with  ordinary  patience  the  smallest  inconveniences  of  life. 
These  were  times  wlien  Carlyle  was  like  a  child,  and  like 
a  very  naughty  one. 

During  the  three  months  of  his  absence  the  house  in 
Cheyne  Kow  had  undergone  a  'thorough  repair.'  This 
process,  which  the  dirt  of  London  makes  necessary  every 
four  or  five  years,  is  usually  undergone  in  the  absence  of 
the  owners.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  feeble  and  out  of  health  as  she 
was,  had  remained,  to  spare  her  husband  expense,  through 
the  paint  and  noise,  directing  everything  herself,  and  re- 


A  Repaired  House.  281 

storing  everything  to  order  and  cleanliness  at  a  minimum 
of  cost.  The  walls  had  been  painted  or  papered,  the 
floors  washed,  the  beds  taken  to  pieces  and  remade,  the 
injured  furniture  mended.  With  her  own  hands  she  had 
newly  covered  chairs  and  sofas,  and  stitched  carpets  and 
c-urtains ;  while  for  Carlyle  himself  she  had  arranged  a 
library  exactly  in  the  form  which  he  had  declared  before 
that  it  was  essential  to  his  peace  that  his  own  working- 
room  should  have.  For  three  days  he  was  satisfied,  and 
acknowledged  'a  certain  admiration.'  Unfortunately 
when  at  heart  he  was  really  most  gratified,  his  acknowl- 
edgments were  limited ;  he  was  shy  of  showing  feeling, 
and  even  those  who  knew  him  best  and  understood  his 
ways  were  often  hurt  by  his  apparent  indifference.  He 
had  admitted  that  the  house  had  been  altered  for  the  bet- 
ter, but  on  the  fourth  morning  the  young  lady  next  door 
began  upon  her  fatal  piano,  and  then  the  tempest  burst 
out  which  Mrs.  Carlyle  describes  with  such  pathetic 
humour.'  First  he  insisted  that  he  would  have  a  room 
made  for  himself  on  the  roof  where  no  sound  could  enter. 
When  shown  how  much  this  would  cost,  he  chose  to  have 
his  rooms  altered  below — partitions  made  or  taken  down — 
new  fireplaces  introduced.  Again  the  house  was  filled 
with  dust  and  workmen ;  saws  grating  and  hammers 
clattering,  and  poor  Carlyle  in  the  midst  of  it,  ^  wringing 
his  hands  and  tearing  his  hair  at  the  sight  of  the  uproar 
which  he  had  raised.'  And  after  all  it  was  not  the  piano, 
or  very  little  the  piano.  It  is  in  ourselves  that  we  are 
this  or  that,  and  the  young  lady  might  have  played  her 
fingers  ofF,  and  he  would  never  have  heard  her,  had  his 
work  once  been  set  going,  and  he  absorbed  in  it.  But  go 
it  would  not,  except  fitfully  and  unsatisfactorily ;  his 
materials  were  all  accumulated ;  he  had  seen  all  that  he 
needed  to  see,  yet  his  task  stDl  seemed  impossible.    The 

*  Letters  and  MemoriaU^  voL  L  p.  187. 


282  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

tumult  in  the  house  was  appeased  :  another  writing-room 
was  arranged  ;  the  unfortunate  young  lady  was  brought 
to  silence.  '  Fast  and  Present '  was  done  and  out  of  the 
way.  The  dinner-hour  was  changed  to  the  middle  of  the 
day  to  improve  the  biliary  condition.  No  result  came. 
He  walked  about  the  streets  to  distract  himself.  His 
mind  wandered  to  other  subjects  as  one  thing  or  another 
suggested  itself. 

Journal. 

Chelsea:  October  10,  1843. — Began  yesterday  to  dine  at  2.30. 
Perhaps  it  will  do  me  good  on  the  dyspeptic  side.  Walked  from 
three  to  six  yesterday  afternoon,  saw  some  of  Wilkie's  prints  in  a 
shop-window — '  Card-players,'  *  Beading  a  Will,'  &c.  The  pictures 
I  had  never  seen— discovered  for  the  first  time  what  a  genius  was  in 
this  Wilkie :  a  great  broad  energy  of  humour  and  sympathy ;  a 
real  painter  in  his  way,  alone  among  us  since  Hogarth's  time— re- 
flected with  sorrow  that  the  man  was  dead,  that  I  had  seen  him 
with  indifference,  without  recognition,  while  he  lived.  Poor 
Wilkie  !  A  very  stunted,  timidly  proud,  uninviting,  unproductive- 
looking  man.  I  spoke  with  him  a  little  in  his  own  house  while  he 
was  painting  Sir  David  Baird  and  Seringapatam.  The  picture 
seemed  to  me  a  hollow  cloud,  as  our  other  pictures  are.  The  man 
himself  was  cold,  shy,  taciturn.  I  saw  Wilkie  and  did  not  know 
him.  One  should  have  his  eyes  opener.  The  Life  of  Wilkie  by 
poor  Allan  Cunningham,  the  most  chaotic  compilation  in  the 
world,  revealed  to  me  the  small  but  genuine  spirit  of  a  man  strug- 
gling confusedly  amid  the  boundless  element  of  twaddle,  dilettan- 
tism, shopkeeperism,  and  other  impurity  and  inanity,  of  which  our 
earth,  and  most  of  all  the  painter's  earth,  is  at  present  full.  He 
rebukes  me  by  several  of  his  qualities — by  his  patience,  his  sub- 
missive, unwearied  endeavour  in  such  element  as  he  finds — a  truly 
well-doi7ig  man.  His  '  Card-players '  struck  me  more  than  any  of 
his  engravings  I  chanced  to  see  last  night ;  genuine  life-figures,  a 
great  gluttonous  substantiality,  some  glimpse  of  universal  life 
looking  out  through  the  coarse  boor  shapes  ;  the  awfully  massive 
hips  and  seats,  the  teeth  and  laugh  of  that  President  at  the  board 
head,  &c.     Alas  !  poor  Wilkie  is  not  here  any  more. 

Oh,  miserable  '  slip  the  labour,'  what  is  become  of  thi/  endeavour  ? 
Not  a  word  of  it  yet  got  to  paper ;  the  very  scheme  and  shadow  of 


Beginiiinga  of  *  CromweW  283 

it  hovering  distracted  in  the  cloud  rack,  sport  of  every  wind.     I 
am  truly  to  be  pitied,  to  be  condemned. 

So  Carlyle  had  been  when  lie  began  the  '  French  Revolu- 
tion.' So  it  was,  is,  and  must  be  with  every  serious  man 
wlien  lie  is  first  starting  upon  any  great  literary  work. 
*  Sport  of  every  wind '  he  seems  to  himself,  for  every 
triHe,  piano  or  what  not,  distracts  him.  Sterling  was  in 
London,  then  on  tlie  edge  of  his  last  fatal  illness.  In  the 
Journal  of  October  23  Carlyle  enters : — 

Methinks  I  see  a  hieroglyphic  bat 
Skim  o'er  the  zenith  in  a  slipshod  hat, 
And  to  shed  infants'  blood  with  horrid  strides 
A  damned  potato  on  a  whii'lwind  rides. 

Fabulously  attributed  to  Nat  Lee  in  Bedlam;  composed,  I 
imagine,  by  John  Sterling,  who  gave  it  me  yesterday. 

After  this  he  seemed  to  make  progress.  *Have  been 
making  an  endeavour  one  other  time  to  begin  writing  on 
Cromwell.  Dare  not  say  I  have  yet  begun  ;  all  beginning 
is  difficult.'  Many  pages  were  covered,  with  writing  of  a 
sort.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  on  November  28,  describes  him  as 
'  over  head  and  ears  in  Cromwell,'  and  ^  lost  to  humanity 
for  the  time  being.'  That  he  could  believe  himself 
started  gave  some  peace  to  her ;  but  he  was  trying  to  make 
a  consecutive  history  of  the  Commonwealth,  and,  as  he 
told  me  afterwards,  '  he  could  not  get  the  subject  rightly 
taken  hold  of.'  There  was  no  seed  fitly  planted  and  or- 
ganically growing;  and  the  further  he  went,  the  less 
satisfied  lie  was  with  himself.  He  used  to  say  that  he  had 
no  genius  for  literature.  Yet  no  one  understood  better 
what  true  literary  work  really  was,  or  was  less  contented 
to  do  it  indifferently. 

To  John  Sterling. 

Chelsea  :  December  4,  1843. 
I  am  very  miserable  at  present ;  or  call  it  heavy-laden  with  fruit- 
less toil,  which  will  have  much  the  same  meaning.    My  abode  is, 


284  Carlt/le's  Life  in  London. 

and  has  been,  figuratively  speaking,  in  the  centre  of  chaos.  On- 
wards there  is  no  moving  in  any  yet  discovered  line,  and  where  I 
am  is  no  abiding — miserable  enough. 

The  fact  is,  without  any  figure,  I  am  doomed  to  write  some  book 
about  that  unblessed  Commonwealth,  and  as  yet  there  will  be  no 
book  show  itself  possible.  The  whole  stagnancy  of  the  English 
genius  two  hundred  years  thick  lies  heavy  on  me.  Dead  heroes 
buried  under  two  centuries  of  Atheism  seem  to  whimper  pitifully 
*  Deliver  as  !  Canst  thou  not  deliver  us  ?  '  And  alas  !  what  am  I, 
or  what  is  my  father's  house  ?  Confound  it !  I  have  lost  four  years 
of  good  labour  in  the  business  ;  and  still  the  more  I  expend  on  it, 
it  is  like  throwing  good  labour  after  bad.  On  the  whole,  you 
ought  to  pity  me.  Is  thy  sei-vant  a  dead  dog  that  these  things 
have  fallen  on  him  ?  My  only  consolation  is  that  I  am  struggling 
to  be  the  most  conservative  man  in  England,  or  one  of  the  most 
conservative.  If  the  past  times,  only  two  centuries  back,  lie 
wholly  a  torpedo  darkness  and  dulness,  freezing  as  with  Medusa 
glance  all  souls  of  men  that  look  on  it,  where  are  our  foundations 
gone  ?  If  the  j)ast  time  cannot  become  melodious,  it  must  be  for- 
gotten, as  good  as  annihilated  ;  and  we  rove  like  aimless  exiles  that 
have  no  ancestors,  whose  world  began  only  yesterday.  That  must 
be  my  consolation,  such  as  it  is. 

I  see  almost  nobody.  I  avoid  sight  rather,  and  study  to 
consume  my  own  smoke.  I  wish  among  your  buildings  ^  you 
would  build  me  some  small  Prophet's  chamber,  fifteen  feet  square, 
with  a  separate  garret,  and  a  flue  for  smoking,  within  a  furlong  of 
your  big  house,  sacred  from  all  noises  of  dogs,  cocks,  pianofortes, 
insipid  men,  engaging  some  dumb  old  woman  to  light  a  fire  for 
me  daily  and  boil  some  kind  of  kettle. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  December  31,  1843. 
The  saddest  story  is  that  of  my  book,  which  occasions  great 
difficulty.  I  not  long  ago  fairly  cast  a  great  mass  of  it  into  the 
fire,  not  in  any  sudden  rage  at  it,  but  after  quiet  deliberation,  and 
deciding  on  this  as  the  best  that  I  could  do.  I  am  now  tiying  the 
business  on  another  side  with  hopes  of  better  prosperity  there. 
Prosper  or  not,  I  must  hold  on  at  it,  on  one  side  or  the  other.  I 
must  get  in  upon  it,  and  drive  it  before  me.  But  the  truth  is,  it 
will  be  a  long  heavy  piece  of  labour,  and  I  must  not  grumble  that 

*  Sterling  was  improving  a  house  which  he  had  lately  bought  at  Ventnor. 


Be^n7iing8  of  *  Cromwell,'^  285 

mj  progress  seems  so  small.  I  do  make  progress,  as  much  prog- 
ress as  I  can ;  and  on  the  whole  why  should  I  plague  myself  or 
others  about  the  quantity  of  my  progress  ?  I  am  a  poor  discontented 
creature,  and  ought  at  least  to  hold  my  peace  and  *  be  thankful 
I  am  not  in  purgatoiy.' 

One  of  his  ditficulties  lay  in  his  extreme  conscientious- 
ness. No  sentence  would  be  ever  deliberately  set  down 
on  paper  without  his  assuring  himself,  if  it  related  to  a 
fact,  that  he  had  exhausted  every  means  of  ascertaining 
that  the  fact  was  true  as  he  proposed  to  tell  it ;  or,  if  it 
was  to  contain  a  sentiment  or  opinion,  without  weighing 
it  to  see  if  it  was  pure  metal  and  not  cant  or  insincere 
profession.  This,  however,  lay  in  his  nature,  and,  though 
it  might  give  him  trouble,  would  give  him  no  anxiety.  But 
his  misgiving  was  that  he  was  creating  no  living  organic 
work,  but  a  dead  manufactured  one,  and  this  was  intoler- 
able. He  flung  aside  at  last  all  that  he  had  done,  burnt 
part  of  it,  as  he  said,  locked  away  the  rest,  and  began 
again,  as  he  told  his  mother,  *on  another  side.'  He  gave 
up  the  notion  of  writing  a  regular  history.  He  would 
make  the  person  of  Oliver  Cromwell  the  centre  of  his 
composition,  collect  and  edit,  with  introductions  and  con- 
necting fragments  of  narrative,  the  extant  letters  and 
speeches  of  Oliver  himself — this,  at  least,  as  a  iirst  opera- 
tion— a  plain  and  comparatively  easy  one.  When  it  was 
finished,  he  told  me  that  he  found  to  his  surprise  that  he 
had  finished  all  which  he  had  to  say  upon  the  subject,  and 
might  so  leave  it. 

With  the  new  year  he  was  working  upon  the  fresh 
lines,  still  diffident,  but  in  better  humour  with  himself  and 
his  surroundings. 

For  my  book  (he  wrote  again  to  his  mother  on  January  11  [1844]) 
I  dare  not  say  much  about  it,  and,  indeed,  had  better  altogether 
keep  silent  and  plague  nobody  with  it  further,  for  nobody  can 
help  me  in  it,  do  what  he  will.  It  is  a  most  difficult  book  ;  but 
by  the  blessing  of  Heaven  I  hope  to  get  it  done  yet,  and  to  have 


286  Carlyle^s  Life  m  London. 

accomplished  something  useful  thereby.  Naj^  indeed,  I  am  some- 
times taught  more  distinctly  than  usual  that  vntJiout  the  blessing 
of  Heaven  /  cannot  get  it  done  ;  which  surely  is  a  wholesome 
lesson,  and  one  we  should  be  thankful  for  for  ever,  even  though  it 
come  to  us  in  pain.  I  have  heard  of  an  Italian  popular  preacher 
who  one  day  before  a  grand  audience  fairly  broke  down,  and  had 
not  a  word  to  say.  His  shame  was  great ;  he  blushed  ;  he  almost 
wept ;  but,  gathering  himself  at  last,  he  said  :  '  My  friends,  it  is 
the  punishment  of  my  pride ;  let  me  lay  it  to  heart  and  take  a 
lesson  by  it.'  So  be  it  with  us  all.  .  .  .  The  people  in  the  next 
house,  whose  piano  was  so  loud  when  I  sate  down  to  write,  have 
behaved  with  the  noblest  chivalry.  They  keep  their  piano  silent 
every  day  rigorously  till  two  o'clock.  At  other  hours  I  am  not 
writing,  and  it  does  me  no  ill ;  rather  does  me  good,  when  I  reflect 
how  civil  the  people  are.  There  is  great  honour  shown  here  to 
the  literary  man. 

Jowmal. 

February  2,  1844. — Engaged  in  a  book  on  the  Civil  Wars,  on 
Oliver  Cromwell,  or  whatever  the  name  of  it  prove  to  be  ;  the  most 
frightfully  impossible  book  of  all  I  have  ever  before  tried.  It  is 
several  years  since  the  thing  took  hold  of  me.  I  have  read  hun- 
dredweights of  dreary  books,  searched  dusty  manuscripts,  corre- 
sponded, &c.  &c.,  almost  with  no  results  whatever.  How  often 
have  I  begun  to  write,  and  after  a  certain  period  of  splunging  and 
splashing  found  that  there  was  yet  no  basis  for  me.  Since  my  re- 
turn from  Scotland  and  Wales  and  the  North  in  September  last  it 
is  just  about  five  months  complete.  Most  part  of  that  time  I  have 
been  really  assiduous  with  this  book,  or  one  or  the  other  adjuncts 
of  it,  and  there  really  stands  now  on  m/  paper  in  any  available 
shape,  as  it  were  correctly — nothing.  Much  I  have  blotted,  fairly 
burnt  out  of  my  way.  What  will  become  of  it  and  of  me  ?  Some- 
times I  get  extremely  distressed.  What  of  that?  Was  it  ever 
otherwise  ?  Will  it  ever  be  ?  Carpenters  with  contrivances  to  se- 
cure me  from  noises,  treaties  about  neighbouring  pianos,  complaints 
of  barking  dogs,  above  a  hundred  'Musseum  headaches ; '  no  books 
but  *Rushworthian  Torpedos ; '  little  company  that  is  not  a  torpedo 
to  me  ;  and,  to  crown  the  whole,  not  a  vestige  of  work  actually 
done.  This  is  bad  enough.  The  fact  is,  I  am  myself  very  much 
to  blame,  I  am  full  of  '  choler,'  of  impatience,  alas !  of  insincerity 
of  heart.    There  will  be  no  good  come  by  talking  of  it  here.   Yester- 


Professorship  m  St.  Andrew' h.  2*^7 

day  at  the  Musseum.    To-day  in  quiet  sorrow,  attempting  to  begin 
again  to  wiite  somewhat.     Non  omnes  occiderunt  soles. 

Scotland  meanwhile  was  remembering  Carlyle.  The 
Edinburgh  students  were  not  alone  in  their  effort  to  call 
hiul  back  across  the  irremeabUis  unda. 

As  to  my  book  (he  wrote  a  fortnight  later  to  Scotsbrig)  it  is  not 
absolutely  stopping,  but  is  going  its  own  gate,  a  much  longer  one 
than  I  expected  it  might  be.  I  study  to  keep  holdiug  on.  *  Slow 
fire  does  make  sweet  meat.*  I  think  I  shall  perhaps  make  some- 
thing of  it  in  the  end,  if  I  be  at  once  patient  and  diligent.  At  all 
events,  I  must  and  will  endeavour.  This  morning  there  came  a  let- 
ter from  Sir  Da\-id  Brewster,  about  a  Professorship  in  St.  Andrews 
for  me.  I  have  already  written  to  decline  it.  Professorships  of 
that  kind  do  not  suit  me  now.     They  come  a  day  behind  the  fair. 

The  offer  of  a  Scotch  professorship  was  unacceptable, 
but  was  of  course  gratifying.  So  in  a  higher  degree  was 
the  begiiming  of  a  new  order  of  legislation  setting  aside 
the  received  doctrines  of  laissezfaire^  which  he  might  fairly 
think  to  be  due  at  least  in  part  to  his  own  writings.  Lord 
Ashley — Lord  Shaftesbury,  as  he  has  been  so  long  and  so 
honourably  known  to  us — must  have  the  first  place  as 
having  successfully  carried  through  the  great  measure  for 
the  protection  of  the  factory  children.  But  Carlyle,  too, 
had  affected  the  thoughts  of  the  younger  generation  of  re- 
flecting politicians,  and  made  possible  Lord  Ashley's  attack 
upon  the  political  economists.  It  was  with  real  delight 
that  he  informed  his  mother  of  the  first  introduction  of 
this  measure. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotsh'^ig. 

Chelsea :  March  30,  1844. 
All  the  people  are  in  controversy  about  Lord  Ashley's  proposal 
to  restrict  the  hours  of  factory  labour  to  twelve,  with  two  allowed 
for  meals — that  is,  ten  hours  in  all.  Numbers  of  people  are  loud 
and  bitter  against  it.  As  for  me,  I  rejoice  greatly  that  the  Govern- 
ment has  in  any  way  begun  to  deal  with  that  hoi-rid  business,  the 
Btate  of  the  working  people.    Innumerable  tasks  lie  there  for  all 


288  Carlyle^s  Life  i?i  London. 

manner  of  wise  goveniors  and  parliamenteers  and  prime  ministers. 
Lord  Ashley's  Bill  was  carried  once ;  but  Peel  and  Graham  have 
turned  again  upon  him,  saying  they  will  go  out  if  he  can-y  it ;  so 
that  probably  it  will  be  lost  this  time.  But  the  business  is  begun, 
that  is  the  great  fact.  The  other  day  I  saw  one  of  the  official 
people — Lord  Elliot — in  a  company  who  were  all  talking  about 
this.  I  told  him  the  Government  were  absolutely  bound  either  to 
try  whether  they  could  do  some  good  to  these  people,  or  to  draw 
them  out  in  line  and  openly  shoot  them  with  grape.  That  would 
be  mercy  in  comparison.  He  seemed  much  astonished  ;  but  I 
had  a  fair  share  of  the  company  on  my  side. 

It  was  always  to  his  mother  that  he  wrote  first  when  he 
had  anything  interesting  to  tell,  whether  it  was  about  an 
Act  of  Parliament,  or  the  progress  of  his  writing,  or  when 
the  kitlin  had  an  American  mouse  to  send  to  the  Auld 
Cat.  She  was  seldom  out  of  his  thoughts,  as  he  was 
seldom  out  of  hers ;  and  she  was  now  growing  old  and 
ailing.  Here  is  another  of  his  letters  to  her  : — 
To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  April  24,  1844. 

You  have  been  too  frequently  ill  this  spring,  my  dear  mother ; 
you  really  must  take  more  pains  with  yourself.  Let  me  beg 
Jenny,  ^  too,  to  be  in  all  ways  careful  of  you.  Alas !  what  can  I 
do  ?  I  am  far  off,  and  cannot  be  of  help  to  you  myself,  which  I 
would  so  gladly  be.  Surely  it  is  well  the  part  of  one  and  all  of  us 
to  do  for  our  good,  true  mother  whatsoever  we  can.  She  did 
faithfully  for  us  what  lay  in  her  when  the  time  was.  Jean  tells 
me  she  has  sent  you  a  fowl  or  two.  I  have  earnestly  urged  her  to 
continue  that.  A  little  soup  and  wheat  bread  for  dinner  would 
certainly  be  much  w^holesomer  than  what  you  usually  dine  on. 
Besides,  the  good  weather  is  now  come — that  of  itself  will  be  a 
great  relief  to  you.  Go  up  to  the  moor  on  a  sunny  day.  The 
sight  of  the  bonny  world  growing  green  again  will  be  like  a 
sermon  to  your  pious  heart,  as  indeed  such  a  heart  can  nowhere 
want  for  sermons.  The  stars  in  the  heavens  and  the  little  blue- 
bells by  the  wayside  alike  show  forth  the  handiwork  of  Him  who 
is  Almighty,  who  is  All  Good.  In  a  bad,  weak  world,  what  would 
become  of  us  did  not  our  hearts  understand  at  all  times  that  this 
»  The  sister  living  at  home  with  her  mother. 


Difficulties  with  '  CromweU:  289 

is  even  so?  ...  I  struggle  away  here,  not  always  in  the 
Bucoessfullost  manner,  yet  trying  alwliys  to  make  some  progress 
in  my  work.  'Many  a  little  makes  a  mickle.'  It  will  be  a  long, 
dreigh,^  and  weaiy  job;  but  I  must  plod  along;  keep  chopping 
on,  and  hope  to  get  through  it  in  time.  My  health  is  not  to  be 
complained  of.  I  should  study  well  to  husband  what  strength  is 
given  me,  not  fret,  as  I  too  often  do,  on  what  is  denied  me.  Jane, 
too,  gets  better  in  the  bright  weather.  All  is  bright  here — sunny, 
and  full  of  blossom.  I  study  to  go  out  to  dinner  as  little  as  pos-  • 
sible,  and  write  refusals  to  the  right  and  left.  Dinners  will  do 
nothing  for  me  ;  only  the  getting  on  with  my  book  will  do  some- 
thing. .  .  .  Jeffrey  is  here  in  poorish  health,  but  liiuch  better 
than  he  was.  He  is  nearly  of  your  age,  but  grows  no  more  serious 
as  he  grows  older.  At  least,  lie  thinks  proper  to  affect  the  same 
light  ways— to  me  not  the  beautifullest  in  an  old  man. 

How  anxious  he  was  about  his  mother — how  inexpressi- 
bly dear  she  was  to  him — appears  from  a  note  in  his 
Journal : — 

Ma(/  8. — My  dear  old  mother  has,  I  doubt,  been  often  poorly 
this  winter.  They  report  her  toell  at  present ;  but,  alas  !  there  is 
nothing  in  all  the  earth  so  stern  to  me  as  that  constantly  advanc- 
ing inevitability,  which  indeed  has  terrified  me  all  my  days. 

The  same  day  he  enters : — 

My  progress  in  *  Cromwell '  is  frightful.  I  am  no  day  absolutely 
idle,  but  the  confusions  that  lie  in  my  way  require  far  more  fire  of 
energy  than  I  can  mu.ster  on  most  days,  and  I  sit  not  so  much  work- 
ing as  painfully  looking  on  work.  A  thousand  times  I  have  re- 
gretted that  this  task  was  ever  taken  up.  My  heart  was  never 
righlly  in  it.  My  conscience  it  rather  was  that  drove  me  on.  My 
chief  motive  now  is  a  more  and  more  burning  desire  to  have  done 
with  it.  EJieUy  eheu  !  I  am  very  weak  in  health,  too.  I  am  oftenest 
very  sad.  The  figure  of  Age,  of  greyhaired  weakness,  twilight,  and 
the  inevitable  night  never  came  on  me  so  forcibly  as  this  year. 
Age  is  sad,  yet  it  is  noble  after  a  sort ;  the  advance  of  it  upon  me 
is  a  peculiar  tragedy,  new  for  every  new  life.  Words  are  weak  in 
general  to  express  what  I  feel.  Thou  art  verily  growing  old,  and 
thou  hast  never  been  young ;  and  thy  Ufe  has  amounted  to  this 
poor  paltriness,  and,  &c.  ^o,  &o.  There  is  no  wisdom  in  writing 
»  Dreiffh,  tedious. 
Vol.  m.^X9 


290  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

such  thoughts,  or  even  in  more  than  partially  entertaining  them. 
The  Future  alone  belongs  to  us.  Let  us  doubly  and  trebly  struggle 
to  profit  by  that — turn  that  to  double  and  treble  account.  Oh  heav- 
ens !  get  on  with  thy  *  Cromwell.' 

Tlie  dissatisfaction  of  Carlyle  with  his  own  work,  as  long 
as  he  was  engaged  upon  it,  is  a  continuous  feature  in  his 
(character.  'The  "French  Revolution"  was  worth  notli- 
iiig.'  'To  have  done  with  it'  was  the  chief  desire  which 
he  had.  'To  have  done  with  it'  was  his  chief  desire 
again  now.  'To  have  done  with  it'  was  the  yet  more 
passionate  cry  in  the  prolonged  agony  of  '  Frederick.'  The 
art  of  composition  was  merely  painful  to  him,  so  conscious 
was  he  always  of  the  distance  between  the  fact  as  he  could 
represent  it  and  the  fact  as  it  actually  was.  He  could  be 
proud  when  he  measured  himself  against  other  men  ;  but 
his  estimate  of  his  merit,  considered  abstractedly,  was 
utterly  low.  His  faults  disgusted  him  ;  his  excellences  he 
could  not  recognise ;  and  when  the  work  was  done  and 
printed,  he  was  surprised  to  find  it  so  much  better  than  he 
had  thought. 

It  is  always  so.  The  better  a  man  is  morally,  the  less 
conscious  he  is  of  his  virtues.  The  greater  the  artist,  the 
more  aware  he  must  be  of  his  shortcomings.  If  excellence 
is  to  be  its  own  only  reward,  poor  excellence  is  in  a  bad 
way ;  for  the  more  there  is  of  it,  the  less  aware  of  itself  it 
is  allowed  toibe.  There  is  and  must  be,  however,  a  certain 
comfort  in  the  sense  that  a  man  is  doing  a  right  thing,  if 
not  well,  yet  as  well  as  he  can.  Flashes  of  this  kind  do 
occasionally  shine  in  among  Carlyle's  sad  meditations.  On 
May  31  he  reports  to  his  mother: — 

My  book  now  goes  along  better  or  worse,  though  still  far  too 
slowly.  I  am  now,  however,  beginning  to  see  above  ground  some 
fruit  of  the  unspeakable  puddlings  and  welterings  I  had  under- 
ground. I  do  hope  sometimes  that  I  shall  get  the  poor  book  done, 
and  that  it  will  turn  out  to  have  been  worth  doing.     Oliver  Crom- 


Mrs.  Carlyle,  291 

well  IS  an  actually  pions,  praying,  God-fearing,  Bible-reading  man, 
and  struggles  in  the  high  places  of  the  world  before  God  and  man 
to  do  what  he  finds  written  in  his  Bible — an  astonishing  spectacle, 
unexampled,  altogether  incredibl,^  to  the  beggarly  Peel,  Russell, 
and  company  that  have  got  the  guidance  of  the  world  now,  to  all 
our  soiTows.  If  I  can  show  Oliver  as  he  is,  I  shall  do  a  good  turn  ; 
but  it  is  terribly  difficult  to  such  an  age  as  this  is  and  has  loDg 
been. 

There  was  to  be  no  Scotland  for  Carlyle  this  year.  The 
starting  with  '  Cromwell '  had  been  so  hard  that  he  did 
not  mean  to  pause  over  it  till  it  was  done ;  and  an  occa- 
sional rest  of  a  day  or  two  at  the  houses  of  friends  near 
London  was  all  that  lie  intended  to  allow  himself.  It 
was  his  wife's  turn  to  have  a  holiday.  She  had  not  been 
in  the  North  since  she  had  lost  her  mother.  All  the  last 
summer  had  been  spent  with  the  workmen  in  Cheyne 
Row.  In  autumn  and  winter  she  had  been  ill  as  usual 
with  coughs,  sleeplessness,  and  nervous  headaches.  As 
long  as  the  cold  weather  lasted  she  liad  not  been  well  for 
a  single  day,  and  only  her  indomitable  spirit  seemed  to 
keep  her  alive  at  all.  She  never  complained — perhaps 
fortunately — as  with  Carlyle  to  suffer  in  any  way  was  to 
complain  loudly  and  immediately,  and  when  complaint  was 
ahsent  he  never  realised  that  there  could  be  occasion  for 
it.  Anyway  she  was  now  to  have  a  holiday.  She  was  to 
go  first  to  lier  uncle  at  Liverpool,  then  to  the  Paulets  at 
Seaforth,  then  to  stay  with  Geraldine  Jewsbury  at  Man- 
chester ;  then,  if  she  washed,  to  go  to  Scotland.  She 
was  always  economical,  and  travelled  at  smallest  cost. 
Money  matters  no  longer,  happil}^,  required  such  narrow 
attention  as  in  former  years.  Her  letters  (or  parts  of 
them)  describing  her  adventures  are  published  in  the 
'  Letters  and  Memorials.'  Carlyle,  busy  as  he  was,  made 
time  to  write  to  her  regularly,  witli  light  affectionate 
amusing  sketches  of  his  visitors  or  tlie  news  of  tlie  day  ; 
most  particularly  of  the  progress  of  the  new  acquaintance 


292  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

wliicli  was  to  have  so  serious  an  influence  on  her  own  fli- 
tui-e  peace.  ...  Mr.  and  Lady  Harriet  Baring,  whom 
lie  had  met  two  years  previously,  were  now  both  of  them 
becoming  his  intimate  friends.  From  Mr.  Baring '  there 
are  many  letters  preserved  among  Carlyle's  papers.  They 
exhibit  not  only  respect  and  esteem,  but  the  strongest  per- 
sonal confidence  and  affection,  which  increased  with  fuller 
knowledge,  and  ceased  only  with  death.  They  show,  too, 
a  fuller  understanding  of,  and  agreement  with,  Carlyle's 
general  views  than  are  to  be  found  in  almost  any  of  those 
of  his  other  correspondents.  From  Lady  Harriet,  too, 
there  are  abundance  of  notes,  terse,  clear,  and  peremptory, 
rather  like  the  commands  of  a  sovereign  than  the  easy 
communications  of  friendship.  She  was  herself  gifted, 
witty,  unconventional,  seeing  men  and  things  much  as 
they  were,  and  treating  them  accordingly.  She  recog- 
nised the  immense  superiority  of  Carlyle  to  everyone  else 
who  came  about  her.  She  admired  his  intellect ;  she 
delighted  in  his  humour.  He  at  first  enjoyed  the  society 
of  a  person  who  never  bored  him,  who  had  a  straight 
eye,  a  keen  tongue,  a  disdain  of  nonsense,  a  majestic  arro- 
gance. As  they  became  more  intimate,  the  great  lady  af- 
fected his  imagination.  He  was  gratified  at  finding  him- 
self appreciated  by  a  brilliant  woman,  who  ruled  supreme 
over  half  of  London  society.  She  became  Gloriana, 
Queen  of  Fairyland,  and  he,  with  a  true  vein  of  chivalry 
in  him,  became  her  rustic  Red  Cross  Knight,  who,  if  he 
could,  would  have  gladly  led  his  own  Una  into  the  same 
enchanting  service.  The  '  Una,'  unfortunately,  had  no  in- 
clination for  such  a  distinguished  bondage.  The  Barings 
had  a  villa  at  Addiscombe,  and  during  the  London  season 
frequently  escaped  into  the  Surrey  sunshine.  Carlyle  had 
been  invited  to  meet  a  distinguished  party  there. 

1  Lord  Ashburton  afterwards. 


An  Mjeiiing  at  Addisoomhe.  293 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle^  at  Liverpool. 

Chelsea :  July  7, 1844 
Yesterday  I  did  go  to  the  Barings,  bnt  I  got  home  the  same 
night,  which  was  an  immense  point.  We  were  a  truly  sublime 
party,  as  many  as  the  table  would  hold.  Lord  Howick  and  his 
wife.  Earl  Grey's  son,  a  thin,  lame  man,  turned  of  forty,  looking 
very  weak  of  body,  but  earnest,  clear,  affectionate,  and  honest, 
with  good  talent,  too,  for  the  spiritual  part ;  the  Lady  Howick, 
a  pale,  aquiline,  dark-eyed  beauty,  bleached  white,  who  did  not  cap- 
tivate me  or  estrange  me  ;  the  immortal  old  Lady  Holland,  really  a 
kind  of  Witch  of  the  (Kensington)  Alps,  veiy  impressive  in  her 
way.  She  is  terribly  broken,  poor  old  lady !  has  a  doctor,  the 
strangest  little  fellow  I  have  seen,  who  did  not  speak  one  word, 
good  or  bad,  but  seemed  happy  and  perfect  in  the  social  gesticu- 
hitions.  Besides  him,  she  canies  with  her  a  page,  and  an  old 
woman  to  nib  her  legs.  These,  with  the  natural  et  caeteras,  al- 
most fill  a  house  of  themselves.  BuUer  of  course  was  there,  as  in 
his  home ;  Stanley,  too,  again,  but  without  his  wife ;  he  and 
others  too  tedious  to  mention.  The  gooseberries  were  ripe ;  I 
had  a  pocket  of  cigars,  and  other  smokers  to  keep  me  company. 
The  day  was  soft,  gi*ey,  without  rain  :  a  temperature  like  silk. 
The  Lady  Harriet  is  the  most  consummate  of  landladies,  regard- 
less of  expense.  Baring  himself  has  radiances  of  real  talent.  He 
is,  I  do  think,  a  good,  modest  man.  Tlie  whole  matter  went  off 
with  effect.  It  is  really  entertaining  to  me  to  be  a  part  of  such  a 
company  now  and  then.  Their  ai*t  in  speech,  more  and  more  no- 
ticeable gradually,  is  decidedly  a  thing  to  be  considered  valuable, 
venerable.  Real  good  breeding,  as  the  people  have  it  here,  is  one 
of  the  finest  things  now  going  in  the  world.  The  careful  avoid- 
ance of  all  discussion,  the  swift  hopping  from  topic  to  topic,  does 
not  agree  with  me ;  but  the  graceful  skill  they  do  it  with  is  be- 
yond that  of  minuets. 

Among  other  subjects,  we  came  over,  pretty  late  in  the  evening, 
upon  Mazzini's  letters. '  Brougham  had  been  privately  telling  all 
people  in  the  Lords  one  day  that  Mazzini  was  a  scamp  after  all, 
that  he  once  'kept  a  gaming-house.'  So  Stanley  reported,  glad  of 
any  stab  to  Brougham.  The  old  stem  Witch  of  the  Ali)s  there- 
upon asked  Lady  Harriet  what  he  really  was,  this  Mazzini.     *  A 

>  Opened  in  the  English  Post  Office,  about  which  there  was  so  loud  a  stir 
in  those  years. 


294  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London. 

Kevolutionary  man,  the  head  of  young  Italy,'  answered  she.  *  Oh, 
then,  they  surely  ought  to  take  him  up,'  rejoined  the  Witch.  Our 
adroit  hostess  hinted  No,  and  that  she  herself  knew  him.  *  What  ?  ' 
exclaimed  the  astonished  Witch,  with  wide-open  eyes.  The  other 
persisted,  with  the  gentlest  touch  of  light  irrefragability,  '  had  ac- 
tually asked  him  to  come  and  see  her.'  I  added,  addressing  the 
Witch,  '  He  is  a  man  well  worth  seeing,  and  not  at  all  si^ecially 
anxious  to  be  seen.'  *  And  did  he  not  keep  a  gaming-house  ?  '  said 
she.  '  He  had  never  the  faintest  shadow  of  connection  with  that 
side  of  human  business,'  said  I.  '  The  proudest  person  in  this 
company  is  not  farther  above  keeping  a  gaming-house  than  Maz- 
zini  is.'  'That  means  Byng  '  (an  absurd  old  curly-headed  diner- 
out  whom  they  call  Poodle  Byng),  said  Buller,  looking  at  the  man, 
upon  which  an  explosion  of  laughter  swallowed  u^)  my  over-em- 
phasis and  the  whole  discussion  in  a  lightly  felicitous  manner. 

A  certain  Mr.  Something  (Kane,  I  think :  really  a  very  civil 
official  gentleman)  volunteered  to  give  me  half  his  cab  to  Picca- 
dilly— a  blessed  arrangement  for  me,  for  Mr.  Kane  and  I  smoked 
in  a  very  social  manner  all  the  way,  and  the  drive  did  me  great 
good,  so  that  to-day  I  am  far  less  damaged  than  could  have  been 
anticipated. 

The  fine  society  did  not  make  Carljle  forget  his  own 
nearer  attentions  : — 

July  13. 
It  is  poor  Goody's  birthday  when  she  reads  this  ;  and  one  ought 
to  have  said  what  the  inner  man  sufficiently  feels  :  that  one  is  right 
glad  to  see  the  brave  little  Goody  with  the  mind's  and  the  heart's 
eye  on  such  an  occasion,  and  wishes  and  prays  all  good  in  this 
world  and  in  all  worlds  to  one's  poor  Goody — a  brave  woman,  and, 
on  the  whole,  a  '  Necessary  Evil ' '  to  a  man.  And  now,  dearest, 
here  is  a  small  gift,  one  of  the  smallest  ever  sent.  Do  not  think  it 
cost  me  any  trouble  to  buy  the  thing ;  once  fairly  in  the  enterj^riso, 
there  was  a  real  pleasure  in  going  through  with  it.  I  tried  haid 
for  a  workbox,  but  there  was  none  I  could  recommend  to  myseU" 
I  was  forced  to  be  content  with  a  little  jewel-box,  and  there,  y(  i 
see,  is  the  key.  Blessings  on  thee  with  it !  I  wish  I  had  diamonds 
to  till  the  places  with  for  my  little  wifie.  I  knew  you  had  a  jewoi- 
box  already,  but  this  is  a  newer  one,  a  far  smaller  one.  Besido  .. 
I  bought  it  very  cunningly,  and  '  the  lady,  if  she  would  liks  any- 

^  Name  by  which  he  often  laughingly  described  his  wife. 


Evening  Parties,  295 

thing  better,  can  at  any  time  get  it  exchanged.'  And  so,  dear 
Goody,  kiss  me  and  take  my  good  wishes.  While  I  am  here  there 
will  never  want  one  to  wish  thee  all  good.  Adieu  on  the  birthday, 
and  may  the  worst  of  our  days  be  all  done  and  the  best  still  coming. 

Thine  evermore. 

Tlie  *  sulphurous  humour'  lay  close  beside  the  tender, 
very  far  from  extinct,  not  even  dormant.  What  Carlyiu 
could  least  endure  was  being  bored.  The  anathemas  which 
he  heaped  on  unfortunate  bores  exceed  Ernulphus's  in 
exquisite  variety.  He  mentions  soon  after  this  that  three 
gentlemen  from  Edinburgh  had  called  to  see  him,  intro- 
duced by  some  acquaintance  from  Haddington.  He  de- 
scribes them  as  '  wretched  duds,'  '  a  precious  three  to  be 
selected  from  all  the  populations  of  the  world  ; '  '  miser- 
able snaffers  full  of  animal  magnetism,  Free  Kirk  and 
other  rubbish.'  He  '  had  doubts  whether  not  to  rise  with 
redhot  oaths,  and  pack  them  all  instantly  into  the  street.' 
He  says  '  he  bit  in  his  rage  as  best  he  could,'  took  his  hat, 
pretended  business,  '  and  walked  the  three  out  instead  of 
kicking  them  out'  '  One  of  Cavaignac's  snorts  was  all 
that  he  could  give  to  such  things.'  '  That  visit  was  the 
beginning  of  sorrows  to  him.'  Evening  parties  could  not 
be  wholly  escaped.  He  had  been  invited  to  one  *  at  the 
ColeridgesV  where  he  expected  an  equal  degree  of  suffer- 
ing, '  half  thought  he  would  fall  sick  and  stick  to  Crom- 
well,' and  V  wished  he  was  in  Goody's  pocket.'  Luckily  it 
did  not  turn  out  quite  so  ill.  '  Trench,  Maurice,  Boxall 
the  painter,  and  other  shovel-hatted  persons,  male  and 
female,  were  there  assembled  ; '  but  he  met  a  daughter  of 
Southey,  whom  he  was  actually  pleased  to  see,  and  Mr.- 
Henry  Coleridge  also,  *  really  a  kind  of  Phantasmion,  ii> 
small,  so  delicate,  pretty,  and  orthodox  wise.'  In  the  worst 
extremities  there  was  always  the  resource  of  Bath  House. 

Last  night  (he  wrote  on  July  19)  I  called  for  Lady' Harriet.   Tlie 
usual  Buller  sate  there  apparently  almost  asleep  in  the  *  fever  of 


296  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

digestion '  when  I  entered.  The  lady  herself,  in  spite  of  her  sick- 
ness, is  always  brisk  as  a  huntress.  BuUer  brightened  np  soon, 
argued,  talked  with  me,  not  to  great  purpose,  but  in  a  cheery, 
rational  manner,  presided  over  by  this  divinity,  and  with  one  cup 
of  innocent  black  tea  and  a  mouthful  of  polite  human  speech  J. 
came  home  little  injured.  Mazzini  is  authorised  to  call  'next 
week  some  evening.'  Poor  victim!  At  a  certain  turn  of  the  con- 
versation I  was  asked  to  come  out  to  Addiscombe  next  Sunday, 
and  could  not  for  the  moment  find  means  of  declining,  but  did  in- 
ternally decline,  and  must  externally  now  send  some  note  to  that 
eifect.  It  is  very  brilliant  all  at  Addiscombe ;  wealth  in  abun- 
dance, ruled  over  by  gi-ace  in  abundance  ;  but  I — I — am  bilious  ; 
I  am  busy — not  equal  to  it  for  the  present. 

Some  misgiving  may  have  crossed  Carlyle's  mind  that 
too  near  an  intimacy  in  these  great  circles  might  not  be 
profitable  to  him.  As  long  as  social  distinctions  survive, 
an  evenness  of  position  is  a  condition  of  healthy  friend- 
ship ;  and  though  genius  is  said  to  level  artificial  inequali- 
ties, it  creates  inequalities  of  another  kind,  which  rather 
complicate  the  situation  than  simplify  it.  However  this 
may  have  been,  hard  work  and  the  London  heat  tired  him 
out  by  the  end  of  the  summer.  He  was  invited  to  stay  at 
the  Grange,  a  beautiful  place  belonging  to  the  Barings  in 
Hampshire,  and  as  the  visit  was  to  be  a  short  one  he 
went.  Mrs.  Baring's  father,  the  Lord  Ashburton  of  the 
American  Treaty,  still  lived  and  reigned  there.  He  had 
heard  of  Carlyle,  and  wished  to  make  his  acquaintance, 
as  his  Transatlantic  wife  did  also.  The  Grange,  in  Sep- 
tember especially,  was  the  perfection  of  an  English 
country  palace.  The  habits  of  it  did  not  suit  Carlyle.  He 
was  off  his  sleep,  woke  early,  could  get  no  breakfast  till 
ten,  and  no  food  but  cigars  and  sunshine. .  But  the  park 
was  beautiful,  the  riding  delightful,  '  the  solitude  and 
silence  divine.'  He  tried  to  be  amused  and  happy,  and 
succeeded  tolerably. 


First  Visit  to  the  Grange.  297 

..►i-^  The  Grange:  September  13,  1844. 

We  are  a  small  party.  Lady  Ashburton  is  a  surgeon  patient  at 
present,  a  stripping  off  of  the  skin  upon  a  carriage  step,  ill  dealt 
with  for  some  days  back.  She  lies  in  a  back  drawing-room,  keeps 
all  the  women  about  her  all  day,  and  we  never  see  her  till  she  is 
wheeled  in  at  night  to  tea.  She  seems  very  fond  of  talking  to 
me ;  a  fmnk,  i-attling  woman,  with  whom,  perhaps,  I  shall  grow  to 
do  veiy  well.  Were  it  not  for  Lady  Harriet,  who  is  herself  a  host, 
we  should  be  ill  oif  for  women.  My  chief  resource  at  present  is 
the  old  Lord,  a  really  good  old  man,  of  most  solid,  cheerful  ways ; 
fond  of  talking  and  being  talked  to  above  any  rational  thing. 

September  14,  1844. 

Alas  !  if  I  could  sleep,  I  might  be  very  well  here  :  but  sleep 
does  not  come,  sleep  flies  ;  and  I  have  nights  in  which  the  vii-tue 
of  patience  is  very  useful  to  me.  I  do  study  to  keep  patient.  In 
fact,  there  is  something  very  soothing  in  the  deep,  dead  silence, 
broken  only  by  the  rare  hooting  of  a  poor  owl,  seemingly  a  mile 
off,  who  appeared  to  be  the  only  living  thing  awake  beside  myself. 
I  start  generally  in  the  morning  with  a  dull  headache,  veiy  stupid  ; 
but  the  breezy  fresh  air,  and  the  constant  motion  they  keep  one  in, 
drive  it  away  gi-adually,  and  I  feel  pretty  well  again. 

We  are  not  a  brilliant  party  here ;  nay,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
Lady  Hariiet  and  myself,  we  should  be  almost  definable  as  a  dull, 
commoni)lace  one.  Buller  is  not  yet  come,  but  is  confidently 
expected  to-night,  and  will  be  a  welcome  acquisition  to  us.  Poodle 
Byng's  comjiauion  was  one  Greville,  an  old  ofiicial  hack  of  quality 
who  runs  racehorses,  whom  I  have  often  enough  seen  before  : 
memorable  as  a  man  of  tme  aristocratic  manner,  without  any 
aristocratic  endowment  whatever — a  Lais  without  the  beauty.  He 
has  Court  gossip,  political  gossip,  &c.,  and  is  civil  to  all  pei-sons, 
careless  about  all  persons — equal  nearly  to  zero.  Lady  Asliburton 
improves  upon  one — a  square,  solid  American  woman,  happily 
without  the  accent ;  but  with  the  rugged  go-ahead  character  of 
that  people.  It  is  from  her  that  your  lover  Baring  takes  his  feat- 
ures. The  old  Lord  Ashburton,  especially  as  he  smokes,  is  my 
favourite  of  all— a  really  good,  solid,  most  cheery,  sagacious, 
simple-heai-ted  old  man.  He  takes  me  long  walks  to  see  his  new 
churches,  his  labourers*  cottages,  his  old  cedars  and  yew  trees, 
carries  in  his  pocket  cigare,  and  talks  and  is  talked  to.  To  finish 
my  description,  I  have  only  to  say  that  our  house  is  built  like  'a 
Grecian  temple,*  of  two  stories ;   of  immense  extent,  massive  in 


298  Cai'lyle's  Life  in  London. 

appearance  and  fronting  every  way.  The  inteiior  is  by  Inigo 
Jones,  with  modern  improvements.  The  rooms  are  full  of  exqui- 
site pictures,  and  there  is  every  convenience.  'All  things  that 
were  pleasant  in  life.     But  the  all- wise,  great  Cre-a-a-tor,  &c.'  ' 

While  this  new  acquaintance  was  rising  np  into  Carl yle's 
sky,  another  was  setting  or  had  set.  I^ews  were  waiting 
for  him  when  he  returned  to  Cheyne  Eow,  which  melted 
the  Grange  and  its  grandeurs  into  bodiless  vapour.  John 
Sterling  was  dead.  Of  all  the  friends  whom  Carlyle  had 
won  to  hhnself  since  he  came  to  London,  there  was  none 
that  he  valued  as  he  valued  this  one.  Sterling  had  been 
his  spiritual  pupil,  his  first,  and  also  liis  noblest  and  best. 
Consumption  had  set  its  fatal  mark  npon  him.  His  spirit 
had  risen  against  it  and  defied  it.  He  had  fled  for  life  in 
successive  winters  to  Italy,  to  France,  and  then  to  Fal- 
mouth and  to  Italy  again.  If  not  better,  there  had  been 
no  sign  that  he  was  becoming  definitely  worse.  He  had 
lately  settled  at  Yentnor,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  He  had 
added  to  his  house ;  he  had  hoped,  as  his  friends  had 
hoped  before  for  him,  that  years  of  useful  energy  might 
still  be  granted  to  him.  It  seemed  impossible  that  a  soul 
so  gifted,  so  brilliant,  so  generous,  should  have  been  sent 
upon  the  earth  merely  to  show  how  richly  it  had  been  en- 
dowed, and  to  pass  away  while  its  promise  was  but  half 
fulfilled.  But  in  this  past  summer  he  had  been  visibly 
declining.  To  himself,  if  to  no  one  else,  it  had  become 
sternly  certain  that  the  end  was  now  near ;  and  on  August 
10  he  had  written  the  letter  of  farewell,  printed  by  Car- 
lyle in  his  lost  friend's  biography,  which  I  am  therefore  at 
liberty  to  transfer  to  these  pages. 

To  T.  Carlyle. 

Ventnor  ;  August  10,  1844. 
My  dear  Carlyle, — For  the  first  time  for  many  months  it  seems 
possible  to  send  you  a  few  words ;  merely,  however,  for  lemem- 

»  See  Letters  and  Memorials,  vol.  i.  p.  160. 


Death  of  John  Sterling.  299 

brance  and  farewell.  On  higher  matters  there  is  nothing  to  say. 
I  tread  the  common  road  into  the  great  darkness,  without  any 
thought  of  fear,  and  with  veiy  much  of  hope.  Certainty,  indctnl, 
I  have  none.  With  regard  to  you  and  me,  I  cannot  begin  to  wiite, 
having  nothing  for  it  but  to  keep  shut  the  lid  of  those  secrets  with 
all  the  iron  weights  that  are  in  my  power.  Towards  me,  it  is  still 
more  true  than  towards  England,  that  no  man  has  been  and  done 
like  you.  Heaven  bless  you!  If  I  can  lend  a  hand  when  tlic:o, 
that  will  not  be  wanting.  It  is  all  veiy  stmnge,  but  not  a  hun- 
dredth part  so  sad  as  it  seems  to  the  standers-by.  Your  wife  knows 
my  mind  towaids  her,  and  will  believe  it  without  asseveration. 

Yours  to  the  last, 

John  Sterling. 

Sterling  lingered  for  six  weeks  after  writing  this,  lie 
had  been  apparently  dying  more  than  once  already,  and 
yet  had  rallied.  Carlyle  conld  not  believe  that  he  was  to 
lose  hira,  and  hoped  that  it  might  be  so  again.  But  it 
was  not  so  to  be.  On  September  18,  within  a  day  of  Car- 
lyle's  return  from  the  Grange,  his  friend  was  dead. 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

A.D.  1845.     MT.  50. 

Slimmer  in  London — Mrs.  Carlyle  in  Liverpool — Completion  of 
'  Cromwell ' — Remarks  upon  it— Effect  of  Cromwell's  history 
on  Carlyle's  mind — Rights  of  majorities — Right  and  might — 
Reception  by  the  world — Visit  to  the  Barings— Lady  Haniet 
and  Mrs.  Carlyle — Letter  to  Sir  Robert  Peel — Meditations. 

Sterling's  death  was  the  severest  shock  which  Carlyle  had 
yet  experienced.  Perliaps  the  presence  of  a  real  sorrow 
saved  liim  from  fretting  over  the  smaller  troubles  of  life. 
He  threw  hiinself  the  more  determinately  into  his  work. 
All  the  remainder  of  this  year  and  all  the  next  till  the 
close  of  the  summer  he  stayed  at  home,  as  far  as  possible 
alone,  and  seeing  few  friends  in  London  except  the  Bar- 
ings. His  wife  had  been  improved  by  her  excursion.  She 
had  been  moderately  well  since  her  return.  Strong  she 
never  was  ;  but  for  her  the  season  had  been  a  fair  one. 
In  July  1845,  the  end  of  '  Cromwell '  was  coming  definitely 
in  sight.  She  could  be  spared  at  home,  and  went  off  again 
to  her  relations  at  Liverpool.  Carlyle  had  another  horse 
— '  Black  Duncan '  this  one  was  called.  He  rode  daily,  and 
sent  regular  bulletins  to  his  'Necessary  Evil' — many, 
through  haste,  undated.  The  Barings  were  still  his  chief 
resource  outside  his  serious  occupations. 

Chelsea:  July  27,  1845. 

Visit  to  Addiscombe— not  the  very  best  of  joys  ;  but  one  ought 

to  be  content  with  it.     I  had  a  great  deal  of  talk  with  Everett,  the 

American  Ambassador,  who  surprises  me  much,   as  a  thorough 

drawling  Yankee  in  manner,  yet  with  intelligence  and  real  gentle- 


Progress  with  *  Cromwell?  301 

manhood  looking  through  it.  Senior,  seeing  me  there,  came  up 
in  the  most  cordial  manner  to  shake  hands,  and  we  even  had  a 
quantity  of  smoking  together  and  philosophical  discoursing  to- 
gether— by  motion  of  his — with  unbated  aversion  of  mine.  Peace 
to  him  I 

August  1. 1S45. 

Thy  blight  little  missives  are  a  real  consolation  to  me  in  my 
solitude  here — a  solitaiy  wrestle  with  the  blockheadisms.  That  is 
what  I  have  just  now,  and  there  is  need  of  some  consolation  at 
times  if  it  could  be  had. 

The  leech '  is  very  well.  I  went  and  saw  it  this  morning  ;  it  has 
an  allowance  of  fresh  water  every  day,  and  comj^lains  of  nothing, 
lying  all  glued  together  at  the  top  of  the  glass  (the  little  villain), 
and  leading  a  very  quiet  life  of  it,  never  even  asking  what  is  taxes  ? 
Wednesday  proved  wet — no  riding  possible.  Walked  up  to  Bar- 
ingdom  in  the  evening.  The  poor  lady  had  cold ;  was  sitting  with 
a  fire — even  she  :  we  are  all  as  cold  here  as  you  are  in  Lancashire. 
Yesternight  had  a  gi*and  ride  over  in  SuiTey  ;  took  the  conceit  out 
of  Duncan  ;  made  him  gallop  at  discretion  till  quite  tame.  Did 
my  own  wearied  self  some  good  by  the  job.  After  that,  while  at 
tea,  Thackeray. 

August  1. 

Just  now  I  have  finished  copying  the  last  letter  of  Oliver's.  I 
will  tiy  hard  yet  to  be  through  the  original  stuff  this  week.  There 
will  then  be  a  conclusion  of  some  kind  to  do ;  an  index  to  set 
going.  After  which  I  am  off  iw's  Frele.  Ay  de  mi  !  The  merits 
of  yoiu*  letters  are  mirrored  in  a  very  fair  glass  when  it  is  I  that 
read  them,  and  if  I  call  them  •  bits  of  letters  '  (she  had  laughingly 
resented  that  expression  of  his),  it  is  perhaps  all  the  better  for 
them  from  a  soul  so  sulky,  so  dispirited,  dead  and  buried,  as  mine 
now  is,  in  this  honid  business  of  mine.  Courage  !  courage !  it 
will  be  done  soon,  and  then  perhaps  better  days  will  covie. 

Angnst. 
This  place  is  getting  very  empty.  Last  night  I  came  accident- 
ally jn  the  Kensington  (hardens  band.  Their  retinue  of  park 
lorses  has  dwindled  to  mei*e  nothing,  a  thing  you  could  ride 
without  diflSculty  through  the  middle  of.  It  is  astonishing  what 
real  pity  I  do  feel  for  these  poor  squires  and  squires'  daughters, 
all  parading  about  in  such  places.     Good  heavens !  and  is  this 

'  One  of  Mrs.  Carlyle'B  singular  pets,  of  which  her  husband  had  charge  in 
her  absence. 


302  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

what  you  call  the  flower  of  life  :  and  age,  and  darkness,  and  the 
grand  Perhaps  lying  close  in  the  rear  of  it — '  Damn  ye,  be  wae  for 
yonrsel'."  So  I  am  too  ;  and  will  now  run  and  put  on  my  riding 
clothes — just  three  minutes  for  it.  Adieu.  Ever  your  affection- 
ate, bad  T.  C. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  had  fallen  in  at  Liverpool  with  a  Uni- 
tarian clergyman  named  J.  M.,  witii  whom  she  had  con- 
versed on  serious  matters  with  considerable  interest.^ 
JVI.  had  seemed  to  her  to  be  inclined  to  leave  his  Uni- 
tarianism  and  to  become  a  pupil  of  Carlyle. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle, 

Chelsea  :  August  8,  1845. 

"What  did  M say  to  you?    It  was  a  great  thing  in  him  to 

quote  me  in  his  preaching  ;  but,  like  the  deacon  of  the  weavers  at 
Dumfries,  one  must  exclaim,  '  Oh,  gentlemen,  remember  that  I  am 
but  a  man.'  Thursday  night,  after  a  day  of  thunder,  I  had  my 
longest  ride  since  you  heard  last,  far  out  towards  Harrow.  As  I 
turned  homewards  there  rose  visible  from  the  big  beautiful  Baby- 
lon a  tree  of  smoke,  which  said  very  plainly,  '  Here  is  a  house  on 
fire.'  It  grew  and  grew,  till  it  covered  whole  fields  of  air.  I 
never  in  any  ride  saw  a  more  impressive  object,  seeming  to  say 
with  a  tragical  tone  of  reproach,  *  Wilt  thou  take  me  for  inctu- 
resque?  I  am  the  blazing  furniture  of  terrified,  distracted  men 
and  women.'     Phew ! 

August. 

Harvest  is  a  month  too  late  ;  wiU  hardly  fail  therefore  to  be 
bad  ;  and  if  the  railway  bubble  burst  at  the  same  time,  as  is  like- 
liest, there  will  be  a  precious  winter  for  the  poor  operatives  again, 
and  those  that  have  charge  of  them.  The  naked,  beggarly  greed 
and  mammon-worship  of  this  generation  is  soiTowfully  apparent 
at  present ;  and  I  confess  sometimes  I  do  not  care  if  their  '  wealtli ' 
and  all  the  greasy  adjuncts  of  it  were  actually  to  take  wings  and 
fly  away.  I  think  we  might  have  a  less  detestable  existence  with- 
out it ;  a  chance  for  a  less  fated  life-element  than  this. 

Good  be  with  thee,  dear  little  Goody  mine.  *  We  clamb  the 
hill  together'  in  a  very  thorny  but  not  paltry  way.     Now  let  us 

J  See  Letters  and  Memorials,  vol.  i.  p.  245,  &c.  I  may  as  well  say  that 
initial  letters  are  not  to  be  relied  upon,  as  1  frequently  change  them. 


Literature  and  Action.  303 

sit  and  look  around  a  little.     We  shall  have  *  to  totter  down '  also ; 
but '  hand  in  hand  we'll  go.' 

Adieu,  dear  Jeannie,  T.  C. 

August  18. 
Beally,  I  begin  almost  to  pity  poor  J.  M.  The  lot  of  a  poor 
man,  of  so  many  poor  men,  doomed  to  twaddle  all  their  lives  in 
Socinian  jargon,  and  look  at  this  Divine  Universe  through  dis- 
tracted, despicable  Jew  Greek  spectacles,  and  a  whole  Monmouth 
Street  of  ♦  Old  Cloe,'  seems  to  me  very  sad.  .  .  .  The  last  speetli 
of  Oliver's  is  faiily  ready  for  printing.  Not  a  line  of  his  now  re- 
mains, thank  Heaven  !  I  have  now  only  to  have  him  die,  and  then 
to  wind  up  in  the  briefest  endurable  way.  I  say  to  myself,  why 
should  not,  for  instance,  the^rs^  of  September  actually  see  me  free 
of  the  job  altogether,  and  ready  for  the  road  somewhither  ?  Wo 
will  try.  As  a  preliminary  I  have  started  to-day  by — a  blue  pill 
and  castor.  Oh  heavens!  But  I  suppose  it  was  the  most,  judi- 
cious stej)  of  all. 

Augr.st21. 

I  know  not  if  you  mean  to  take  Egypt's  advice  [I  do  no.  know 
the  pei"son  alluded  to],  and  write  some  book.  I  have  often  said 
you  might,  with  successful  effect ;  but  the  impulse,  the  necessity, 
has  mainly  to  come  from  within.  It  is  a  poor  trade  othenvlse,  so 
we  will  be  content  with  Goody  whether  she  ever  comes  to  ;i  book 
or  not.  One  way  or  other,  all  the  light,  and  order,  and  energy,  and 
genuine  Thntkraft  or  available  virtue  we  had,  does  come  out  of  us, 
and  goes  very  infallibly  into  God's  Treasury,  living  and  working 
through  eternities  there — very  infallibly,  whether  the  morning 
papers  say  much  about  it  or  say  nothing  ;  whether  the  wagers  wo 
get  be  more  or  less !  We  are  not  lost ;  not  a  solitary  atom  of  us 
—of  one  of  us.  When  I  think  of  our  Oliver  Cromwell  and  of  the 
father  of  a  Burns  and  other  such  phenomena,  I  am  very  indifTerent 
on  the  book  side.  Greater,  I  often  think,  is  he  that  can  hold  his 
peace,  that  can  (h  his  bit  of  light,  instead  of  speaking  it.  .  .  . 
Eheu  !  what  a  business  is  the  society  of  Adam's  posterity  b(H-om- 
ing  for  me— a  considerable  of  a  bm-e  for  most  part.  Helps  walked 
home  to  the  door  with  me  last  night.  We  saw  Green,  the  aero- 
naut, just  get  aloft  from  Vauxhall,  throwing  out  all  manner  of 
fireworks,  red,  green,  and  indigo-coloured  stars,  and  transit ory 
milky  ways,  the  best  he  could,  poor  devil !  He  was  hanging  a 
goodish  way  up  in  the  air,  quite  invisible  except  by  a  cluster  of 
confused  fireworks,  which  looked  very  small  in  the  great  waste 


304  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

deep  of  things,  and  did  not  last  above  half  a  minute  in  all.  No 
paltrier  phenomenon  was  ever  contrived  for  the  solacement  of  hu- 
man souls.  I  figured  the  wretched  mortal  sailing  through  the 
chill,  clear  moonshiny  night,  destitute  of  any  object  now,  and  with 
peril  of  his  life,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  his  life  in,  and  had  a  real 
pitj  for  him.  I  am  very  dark  as  to  the  extreme  closing  uj)  of 
'  Cromwell,'  but  it  seems  to  me  as  if  it  lay  quite  close  at  hand — 
some  one  bright  day,  all  that  was  needed  for  it — perhax^s  to-mor- 
row.    Keally,  I  am  quite  near  it. 

August  23. 

Do  not  seduce  poor  J.  M.  from  his  Unitarian  manger,  poor  fel- 
low !  I  do  not  in  the  least  want  proselytes.  Ach  Gott  I  no ! 
"What  is  the  use  of  them  ?  And  for  himself  it  might  cut  olf  the 
very  staff  of  bread.  Let  him  hang  on  there  till  the  rope  of  itself 
gives  way  with  him. 

You  will  be  sure  to  see  me  if  you  continue  staying  where  you 
are — my  one  fixed  element  of  a  plan  is  to  go  to  Annandale,  and 
the  way  thither  leads  me  through  Lancashire.  I  could  also  be  a 
very  pretty  guest  at  Seaforth,  I  too  for  a  few  days,  and  be  happy 
and  much  liked,  if  the  devil  of  sleeplessness  and  indigestion  did 
not  mark  me  for  a  peculiar  man.  I  do  hope  to  have  done  all  my 
Oliver  writing,  good  heavens  !  the  day  after  to-morrow. 

Fuz  (John  Forster)  came  here  the  night  before  last,  talked  long, 
or  was  talked  to,  really  not  in  a  quite  distracted  manner,  and  pas- 
sionately solicited  and  thankfully  received  your  address.  They — • 
Dickens,  he,  and  a  squad  of  that  sort — have  decided  to  act  a  play 
at  one  of  the  small  theatres,  private,  to  five  hundred  friends.  It 
is  actually  to  be  on  the  21st  of  next  month,  and  it  is  an  immense 
feature  of  it  to  Fuz  that  you  are  to  be  there.     The  excellent  Fuz  ! 

August  26. 
I  have  this  moment  ended  Oliver ;  hang  it !  He  is  ended, 
thrums  and  all.  I  have  nothing  more  to  write  on  the  subject, 
only  mountains  of  wreck  to  bum.  Not  (any  more)  up  to  the  chin 
in  paper  clippings  and  chaotic  litter,  hatefuUer  to  me  than  most. 
I  am  to  have  a  swept  floor  now  again. 

Thus  was  finished  the  first  edition  of  the  '  Letters  and 
Speeches  of  Oliver  Cromwell' — the  first  edition — for  other 
letters,  other  material  of  various  kinds,  came  afterwai-ds 
and  had  to  be  woven  in  with  the  rest ;  but  essentially  the 


Coinjpletion  of  *  CromweU.^  305 

thing  was  done  on  which  Carlyle  had  been  labouring  for 
^WQ  years ;  and  a  few  words  may  now  be  given  to  it. 

This  book  is,  in  my  opinion,  by  far  the  most  important 
contribution  to  English  history,  which  has  been  made  in 
the  present  century.  Carlyle  was  the  first  to  break  the 
crust  which  has  overlaid  the  subject  of  Cromwell  since 
the  Ilestoration,  and  to  make  Cromwell  and  Cromwell's 
age  again  intelligible  to  mankind.  Anyone  who  will  read 
what  was  written  about  him  before  Carlyle's  work  ap- 
]xjared,  and  what  has  been  written  since,  will  perceive 
how  great  was  the  achievement.  The  entluisiast,  led 
away  by  ambition,  and  degenerating  into  the  hypocrite, 
the  received  figure  of  the  established  legend,  is  gone  for 
ever.  We  may  retain  each  our  own  opinion  about  Crom- 
well, we  may  think  that  he  did  well  or  that  he  did  ill,  that 
he  was  wise  or  unwise ;  but  we  see  the  real  man.  We 
can  entertain  no  shadow  of  doubt  about  the  genuineness 
of  the  portrait;  and,  with  the  clear  sight  of  Oliver  him- 
self, we  have  a  new  conception  of  the  Civil  War  and  of  its 
consequences.  The  book  itself  carries  marks  of  the  diffi- 
culty with  which  it  was  written.  It  has  no  clear  continu- 
ity ;  large  gaps  are  left  in  the  story.  Contrary  to  his  own 
rule,  that  the  historian  should  confine  himself  to  the  facts, 
with  the  minimum  of  commentary,  Carlyle  breaks  in  re- 
peatedly in  his  own  person,  pats  his  friends  upon  the 
back,  expands,  applauds,  criticises  to  an  extent  which  most 
readers  would  wish  more  limited.  This,  however,  is  to 
be  remembered,  that  he  was  reproducing  letters  and 
speeches,  of  which  both  the  thought  and  the  language 
were  obsolete — obsolete,  or  worse  than  obsolete,  for  most 
of  it  had  degenerated  into  cant,  insincere  in  everyone  who 
uses  such  expressions  now,  and  therefore  suggesting  insin- 
cerity in  those  who  used  them  then.  Perhaps  he  allowed 
too  little  for  our  ability  to  think  for  ourselves.  But  he 
had  seen  how  fatally  through  this  particular  cause  the 
Vol.  IIL— 20 


306  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

character  of  the  Commonwealth  leaders  had  been  ob- 
scured, and,  if  he  erred  at  all,  he  erred  on  the  right  side. 
It  is  his  supreme  merit  that  he  first  understood  the 
speeches  made  by  Cromwell  in  Parliament,  and  enabled 
us  to  understand  them.  Printed  as  they  had  hitherto 
been,  they  could  only  confirm  the  impression,  either  that 
the  Protector's  own  mind  was  hopelessly  confused,  or  that 
he  purposely  concealed  what  was  in  it.  Carlyle  has 
shown  that  they  were  perfectly  genuine  speeches,  not  elo- 
quent, as  modern  parliamentary  speeches  are,  or  aspire  to 
be  thought;  but  the  faithful  expressions  of  a  most  real 
and  determined  meaning,  about  which  those  who  listened 
to  him  could  have  been  left  in  no  doubt  at  all.  Such  a 
feat  was  nothing  less  than  extraordinary.  It  w^as  not  a 
'whitewashing,'  as  attempts  of  this  kind  are  often  scorn- 
fully and  sometimes  deservedly  called.  It  was  the  recov- 
ery of  a  true  human  figure  of  immense  historical  conse- 
quence from  below  two  centuries  of  accumulated  slander 
and  misconception,  and  the  work  was  completely  done. 
No  hammering  or  criticising  has  produced  the  least  effect 
upon  it.  There  once  more  Cromwell  stands  actually  be- 
fore us,  and  henceforth  will  stand,  as  he  was  when  he 
lived  upon  the  earth.  He  may  be  loved  or  he  may  be 
hated,  as  he  w^as  both  loved  and  hated  in  his  own  time ; 
but  we  shall  lov^eor  hate  the  man  himself,  not  a  shadow 
or  a  caricature  any  more. 

Detailed  criticism  of  the  book,  or  of  any  part  of  it, 
would  be  out  of  place  in  a  biography,  and  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt such  a  thing.  I  may  mention,  however,  what  Car- 
lyle told  me  of  the  effect  upon  his  own  mind  of  his  long 
study  of  the  Commonwealth  and  its  fortunes. 

Many  persons  still  believe  that,  if  the  army  had  not 
pushed  the  quarrel  to  extremities,  if  the  '  unpurged  '  Par- 
liament had  been  allowed  to  complete  its  treaty  with  the 
King,  the  constitutional  fruits  of  the  struggle  might  have 


Conipleiloii  of  *  CromwelV  307 

been  secured  more  completely  than  they  actually  were; 
that  the  violent  reaction  would  never  have  taken  place 
which  was  provoked  by  the  King's  execution  ;  that  the 
Church  of  England  coyld  and  would  have  then  been  com- 
pletely reformed  and  made  Protestant  in  form  and  sub- 
stance ;  the  pseudo-Catholicism — Episcopacy,  Liturgy,  and 
Ritual — which  has  wrought  us  all  so  much  woe  being 
swept  clean  from  off  the  stage. 

Speculations  on  what  might  have  been  are  easy.  We 
see  what  actually  happened  ;  what  would  have  happened 
we  can  only  guess.  Charles,  it  is  certain,  was  false — how 
false  is  now  only  completely  known  when  the  secret  nego- 
tiations of  himself  and  the  Queen  with  the  Catholic 
Powers  have  been  brought  to  light.  No  promises  which 
he  had  made  would  have  bound  him  one  moment  beyond 
the  time  when  he  could  safely  break  them ;  nor  could  any- 
one say  what  the  composition  of  a  new  House  of  Com- 
mons might  be  after  the  next  election.  Taking  the  coun- 
try through,  the  Royalists  and  the  Moderates  together 
were  in  the  majority  in  point  of  numbers,  and  Cromwell's 
conclusion  was  that,  so  far  as  religion  was  concerned,  the 
cause  for  which  he  and  the  army  had  fought  would  be  ut- 
terly lost  if  the  treaty  was  carried  out.  Wearied  England, 
satisfied  with  having  secured  control  of  the  purse-strings, 
would  hand  over  the  sour  fanatics  to  Charles's  revenge. 
Carlyle  was  satisfied  that  Cromwell  was  right,  and  he 
drew  from  it  a  general  inference  of  the  incapacity  of  a 
popular  assembly  to  guide  successfully  and  permanently 
the  destinies  of  this  or  any  other  country.  Ko  such  body 
of  men  was  ever  seen  gathered  together  in  national  coun- 
cil as  those  who  constituted  the  Long  Parliament.  They 
were  the  pick  and  flower  of  God-fearing  England,  men  of 
sovereign  ability,  of  the  purest  patriotism — a  senate  of 
kings.  If  they  failed,  if  they  had  to  be  prevented  by 
armed  force  from  destroying  themselves  and  the  interests 


308  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

committed  to  them,  no  other  Parliament  here  or  anywhere 
was  likely  to  do  better.  Any  pilot  or  conncil  of  pilots 
might  answer,  with  smooth  water  and  fair  winds;  but 
Parliaments,  when  circumstances  were  critical,  could  only 
talk,  as  their  name  denoted.  Their  resolutions  would  be 
half-hearted,  their  action  a  compromise  between  conflict- 
ing opinions,  and  therefore  uncertain,  inadequate,  alter- 
nately rash  or  feeble,  certain  to  end  in  disaster  at  all  criti- 
cal times  when  a  clear  eye  and  a  firm  hand  was  needed  at 
the  helm. 

This  was  one  inference  which  Carlyle  drew.  Anotlier 
was  on  the  rights  of  so-called  '  majorities.'  He  had  been 
bred  a  Radical,  and  a  Radical  he  remained  to  the  last,  in 
the  sense  that  he  believed  the  entire  existing  form  of  hu- 
man society,  with  its  extremes  of  poverty  and  wealth,  to 
be  an  accursed  thing,  which  Providence  would  not  allow 
to  endure.  He  had  been  on  the  side  of  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, hoping  that  the  wretched  Irish  peasantry  might 
get  some  justice  by  it.  He  had  welcomed  the  Reform 
Bill,  imagining  it  to  mean  that  England  was  looking  in 
earnest  for  her  wisest  men,  and  would  give  them  power  to 
mend  what  was  amiss.  He  had  found,  as  he  said,  that  it 
was  but  the  burning  off  the  dry  edges  of  the  straw  on  the 
dunghill ;  that  the  huge,  damp,  putrid  mass  remained  rot- 
ting where  it  was,  and  thus  would  remain,  for  anything 
that  an  extended  suffrage  would  do  to  cure  it.  No  result 
had  come  of  the  Reform  Bill  that  he  could  care  for.  The 
thing  needed  was  wisdom.  Parliaments  reflected  the 
character  of  those  who  returned  them.  The  lower  the 
franchise,  the  less  wisdom  you  were  likely  to  find  ;  and 
after  each  change  in  that  direction  the  Parliament  returned 
was  less  fit,  not  more  fit,  than  its  predecessor.  In  politics 
as  in  all  else,  Carlyle  insisted  always  that  there  was  a  7nght 
way  of  doing  things  and  a  wrong  way  ;  that  by  following 
the  ri^ht  way  alone  could  any  good  end  be  arrived  at ;  and 


Political  Conclusions,  ,309 

that  it  was  as  foolish  to  suppose  that  the  I'igJU  way  of 
managing  the  affairs  of  a  nation  could  be  ascertained  by  a 
majority  of  votes,  as  the  right  way  of  discovering  the  lon- 
gitude, of  cultivating  the  soil,  of  healing  diseases,  or  of 
exercising  any  one  of  the  million  arts  on  which  our  exist- 
ence and  welfare  depend. 

This  conclusion  he  had  arrived  at,  ever  since  he  had  seen 
what  came  and  did  not  come  of  the  Ileform  Bill  of  1832 ; 
and  it  had  prevented  him  from  interesting  himself  in  con- 
temporary politics.  But  Cromwell's  history  had  shown 
him  that  the  right  way  had  other  means  of  asserting  itself 
besides  oratory  and  ballot-boxes  and  polling  booths.  The 
world  was  so  constructed  that  the  strongest,  whether  they 
were  more  or  fewer,  were  the  constituted  rulers  of  this 
world.  It  must  be  so,  unless  the  gods  inteifered,  because 
there  was  no  appeal.  If  one  man  was  stronger  than  all 
the  rest  of  mankind  combined,  he  would  rule  all  mankind. 
They  would  be  unable  to  help  themselves.  But  the  world 
was  also  so  constructed,  owing  to  the  nature  of  the  Maker 
of  it,  that  superior  strength  was  found  in  the  long  run  to 
lie  with  those  who  had  the  right  on  their  side.  A  good 
cause  gave  most  valour  to  its  defenders ;  and  it  was  from 
this,  and  this  alone,  the  supi-emacy  of  good  over  evil  was 
maintained.  liight-minded  men  would  bear  nmch  rather 
than  disturb  existing  arrangements — would  submit  to  kings, 
to  aristocracies,  to  majorities,  as  long  as  submission  was 
possible  ;  but,  if  driven  to  the  alternative  of  seeing  all  that 
they  valued  perish  or  trying  other  methods,  they  would 
prove  that,  though  they  might  be  outvoted  in  the  count  of 
heads,  they  were  not  outvoted  in  the  court  of  destiny. 
Superior  justice  in  the  cause  made  superior  men — men 
who  would  make  it  good  in  spite  of  numbers.  The  best 
were  the  strongest,  and  so  in  the  end  would  always  prove, 
*  considering  who  had  made  them  strong.'  Behind  all  con- 
stitutions, never  so  popular,  lay  an  ultimate  appeal  to  force. 


310  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Majorities,  as  such,  had  no  more  i-ight  to  rule  than  kings, 
or  nobles,  or  any  other  persons  or  groups  of  persons,  to 
whom  circmnstances  might  have  given  temporary  power. 
Tlie  right  to  rule  lay  with  those  who  were  right  in  mind 
and  heart,  whenever  they  chose  to  assert  themselves.  If 
they  tried  and  failed,  it  proved  only  tliat  they  were  not 
right  enough  at  that  particular  time.  But,  in  fact,  no 
lionest  effort  ever  did  fail ;  it  bore  its  part  in  the  eventual 
settlement.  The  strong  thing,  in  the  main,  was  the  right 
thing,  because  the  w-orld  w^as  not  the  Devil's ;  and  the  final 
issue  would  be  found  to  prove  it  whenever  the  question 
Avas  raised.  Society  w^as  in  a  healthy  condition  only  when 
authority  was  in  the  hands  of  those  most  fit  to  exercise  it. 
As  long  as  kings  and  nobles  were  kings  and  nobles  indeed, 
superior  in  heart  and  cliaracter,  the  people  willingly  sub- 
mitted to  them,  and  gave  them  strength  by  their  own  sup- 
port. When  they  forgot  the  meaning  of  their  position, 
lived  for  ambition  and  pleasure,  and  so  ceased  to  be  su- 
perior, their  strength  passed  from  them,  and  wdth  their 
strength  their  authority.  That  was  what  happened,  and 
Avas  happening  still,  in  England.  There  being  no  longer 
any  superiority  of  class  over  class,  the  integers  of  society 
were  falling  into  anarchy,  and,  to  avoid  quarrelling,  might 
'agree  for  a  time  to  decide  their  differences  by  a  majority 
of  votes ;  but  it  could  be  but  for  a  time  only,  imless  all 
that  was  great  and  noble  in  humanity  was  to  disappear  for 
ever ;  for  the  good  and  the  wise  were  few,  and  the  selfish 
and  the  ignorant  were  many ;  the  many  would  choose  to 
represent  them  men  like  themselves,  not  men  superior 
to  themselves  ;  and,  under  pain  of  destruction,  it  was  in- 
dispensable that  means  must  be  found  by  which  the  good 
and  wise  should  be  brought  to  the  front,  and  not  the 
others.  [Mature  had  her  means  of  doing  it,  and  in  ex- 
tremity w^ould  not  fail  to  use  them. 

In  some  such  frame  of  mind  Carlyle  was  left  after  he 


Retreat  at  Scotshriy.  311 

had  finished  his  *  Cromwell.'  I  have  de8cril>ed  in  my  own 
words  what,  in  his  abrupt  and  scornful  dialect,  he  often 
expressed  to  me.  He  was  never  a  Conservative,  for  he 
recognised  that,  unless  there  was  a  change,  impossible  ex- 
cept by  miracle,  in  the  habits  and  character  of  the  wealthy 
classes,  the  gods  themselves  could  not  save  them.  But 
the  Radical  creed  of  liberty,  equality,  and  government  by 
majority  of  votes,  he  considered  the  most  absurd  super- 
stition which  had  ever  bewitched  the  human  imaofina- 
tion — at  least,  outside  Africa. 

Cromwell  thus  disposed  of,  he  was  off  for  Scotland, 
*  wishing,'  as  he  said,  to  be  amiable,  but  dreadfully  bilious, 
and  almost  sick  of  his  life,  if  there  were  not  hopes  of  im- 
provement. He  joined  his  wife  at  Seaforth,  stayed  a  day 
or  two  with  the  Paulets  there,  and  then,  leaving  Mrs. 
Carlyle  to  return  and  take  care  of  the  house  in  Cheyne 
How,  he  made  his  way  on  by  the  usnal  sea  route  to  Annan 
and  Scotsbrig. 

His  letters,  now  that  he  had  leisure,  became  free  and 
ample  again,  no  reaction  after  exertion  having  this  time 
set  in.  He  was,  for  him,  happy,  relieved  of  his  long  bur- 
den ;  his  Journal,  which  contains  chiefly  a  record  of  his 
sorrows,  was  left  untouched.  His  complaints,  such  as 
they  were,  had  reasonable  external  causes. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle^  Chelsea. 

Scotsbrig :  September  13,  1845. 
My  poor  Goody  is  wliirliii<^  away  southward,  while  I  sit  here 
giving  her  some  note  of  my  arrival  northward.  "We  are  strangely 
shovelled  to  and  fro  in  this  much  too  locomotive  world.  It  was 
ihove  an  hour  after  you  left  me  before  our  steamship  got  its  tu- 
i.nlt  consummated  and  hauled  itself  out  of  harbour.  In  my  life 
I  have  seen  few  more  distressing  and  disgusting  uproars  ;  indeed, 
the  whole  voyage  surpassed  in  discomfort  for  me  any  piece  of 
travelling  I  have  executed  for  yeai*s.  .We  saw  very  near  at  hand 
the  Vanity  Fair  of  Livei*pool :  cockneys  in  full  action  near  the 
Bock,  tents  on  the  sand,  swings  and  whirligigs  were  very  evident ; 


312  Carlyleh  Life  in  London. 

squealing  of  fiddles,  popping  of  ginger-beer  corks  were  too  con- 
ceivable. Hudson,  our  captain,  was  engaged  in  clapping  hand- 
cuffs on  a  diTinken  drover  who  had  proved  quarrelsome.  One  of 
my  fellow-passengers  in  the  cabin  proved  to  be  that  big  Thomson, 
the  cattle-dealer,  who  once  called  at  Chelsea  with  Macqueen  ;  ^ 
grown  several  stones  hea^der,  faced  like  Silenus,  full  of  dock  Eng- 
lish and  familiarity,  of  which  the  thought  was  horrible  to  me. 
By  him  my  honoured  name  was  imparted  to  the  ship's  company  in 
general,  and  I  had  the  strangest  addresses,  free  and  easy  as  in  the 
Age  of  Gold.  My  difficulty  not  to  break  into  sheer  vocal  execra- 
tion was  considerable.  Then  the  slaeping-rooms  ! — but  I  will  talk 
no  more  of  it.  I  do  not  think  a  more  brutal  element  of  human  sav- 
agery could  have  been-  found  in  any  part  of  British  land  or  water. 
About  half-past  seven  next  morning  I  was  right  glad  to  see  Jamie 
waiting  for  me  at  the  jetty.  We  got  to  Scotsbrig  before  ten,  and 
Jenny  and  my  mother  had  some  tea  for  me ;  and  I  have  glided 
about  ever  since,  or  lain  on  beds  or  chairs  when  I  could  get  it 
done,  very  much  in  the  humour  (as  I  fancy  it)  of  Jonah  when  he 
found  himself  vomited  from  the  whale's  belly — exceedingly  con- 
fused and  uncertain  what  his  movements  ought  to  be. 

At  midday  I  walked  with  my  mother  to  the  moor.  It  was  really 
as  if  Pan  slept.  The  sun  and  sky  were  bright  as  silver  ;  the  seas 
and  hills  lay  round,  and  noise  of  all  kinds  had  entirely  hushed 
itself,  as  if  the  whole  thing  had  been  a  picture  or  a  dream,  which, 
in  fact,  the  philosophers  tell  us  it  properly  is.  Nothing  can  ex- 
ceed my  mother's  gratitude  to  you — your  two  letters  themselves 
had  given  wonderful  delight.  Most  of  them,  I  think,  are  committed 
to  memory — have  committed  themselves  on  repeated  perusals  [italics 
minej.     It  is  worth  while  to  write  now  and  then  on  such  terms. 

'  The  mother '  was  now  fast  growing  weaker.  She 
brightened  up  at  letters  from  her  dangliter-in-law,  or  on 
visits  from  her  ilhistrious  son,  whom  all  the  world  was 
talking  of  ;  but  '  all  had  grown  old  '  about  her,  except  her 
affection,  which  seemed  younger  than  ever.  Carlyle,  while 
at  Scotsbrig,  was  her  constant  companion,  drove  her  about 
in  the  old  gig,  carried  her  down  to  see  his  sister  Mary  at 
Annan,  or  his  sister  Jean  at  Dumfries ;  and  so  the  days 
passed  on  with  autumnal  composure,  sad  but  not  unhappy. 

»  Life  of  Carlyle — First  Forty  Years,  vol,  ii."  p.  365. 


Betreat  at  Scotah^ig.  313 

Now  and  then  troublesome  proof-slieets  came,  wliich 
would  stir  the  bile  a  little.  But  he  kept  himself  patient, 
found  '  days  of  humiliation  and  retlection  '  extremely  use- 
ful to  him,  and  grumbled  little.  '  All  work,'  he  said,  '  if 
it  be  nobly  done,  is  about  alike:  really  so — one  has  no  re- 
ward out  of  it  except  even  that  same.  The  spirit  it  was 
done  in,  that  is  blessed  or  that  is  accursed — that  is  all.' 
The  world  was  saying  that  he  was  a  great  man.  He  did 
not  believe  it.  Mrs.  Paulet  had  written  some  wildly  flat- 
tering letter,  calling  him  '  the  greatest  man  in  Europe.' 
*  Good  heavens ! '  he  said  of  this ;  *  he  feels  himself  in 
general  almost  the  smallest  man  in  Annandale ;  being 
very  bilious,  confused,  and  sleepless ;  let  him  never  trouble 
himself  what  magnitude  he  is  of.'  '  As  to  his  deserts,  he 
deserved,  if  it  came  to  that,  to  be  in  purgatory.'  In  one 
of  his  letters  he  described  a  long,  late,  solitary  walk. 

I  passed  through  old  localities  like  a  ghost,  and  very  much  in 
the  humour  of  one  ;  past  the  Pennersaughs  Churchyard,  where  my 
grandfather  and  great-gmndfather  (the  farthest  ancestor  I  can 
name)  lie  buried  ;  past  Mein  Bridge,  where  I  have  burned  whins 
and  done  exploits  in  fishing  eels  and  in  other  things.  Ay  de  mi  I 
it  was  better  than  many  sermons,  sweet  though  sad. 

Men  of  genius  who  make  a  mark  themselves  in  liter- 
ature, in  art  or  science,  or  in  any  way  which  brings  their 
name  before  the  Avorld,  find  ready  admittance  into  the 
higher  social  circles ;  but  the  entree  is  granted  less  readily 
to  their  wives  and  daughters.  Where  this  arrangement  is 
allowed,  the  feeling  on  both  sides  is  a  vulgar  one ;  the 
great  lady  is  desirous  merely  that  a  person  who  is  talked 
about  shall  be  seen  in  her  reception  rooms,  and  is  not  anx- 
ious to  burden  herself  with  an  acquaintance  with  his  infe- 
rior connections.  The  gifted  individual  is  vain  of  appear- 
ing in  the  list  of  guests  at  aristocratic  mansions,  and  is 
careless  of  the  slight  upon  his  family.  The  Barings  were 
infinitely  supertor  to  paltry  distinctions  of  this  kind,  nor 


314  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

would  Carlyle  have  cared  for  their  acquaintance  if  they 
had  not  been.  He  was  far  too  proud  in  himself,  and  he 
had  too  high  a  respect  for  his  wife,  to  visit  in  lordly  sa- 
loons where  she  would  be  unwelcome.  Mr.  Baring  had 
called  on  Mrs.  Carlyle,  had  seen  her  often,  and  had  cordi- 
ally admired  her.  With  Lady  Harriet,  though  they  had 
probably  met,  there  had  not  yet  been  an  opportunity  of 
intimacy  ;  but  Carlyle  was  most  anxious  that  his  wife,  too, 
should  be  appreciated  as  she  deserved  to  be  by  a  lady 
whom  he  himself  so  much  admired.  Mrs.  Buller,  an  ex- 
perienced woman  of  the  world,  who  knew  both  Lady  Har- 
riet and  Mrs.  Carlyle,  was  convinced  that  they  would  not 
suit  each  other,  and  that  no  good  would  come  from  an  at- 
tempt to  bring  them  into  close  connection.  To  Carlyle 
Mrs.  BuUer's  forebodings  seemed  absurd.  With  all  his 
knowledge,  he  was  innocent  of  insight  into  the  subtleties 
of  women's  feelings,  and  it  w^as  with  unmixed  pleasure 
that  he  heard  of  a  visit  of  his  wife  to  Bath  House  on  her 
own  account,  soon  after  her  return. 

I  am  very  glad  (he  said) .  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  you,  in 
spite  of  Mrs.  Buller's  prediction,  to  get  on  very  well  there,  I 
should  hope.  Persons  of  sense,  with  no  tale-bearers  or  other  piece 
of  concrete  insanity  between  them,  can  get  on  very  well.  The 
Lady  Harriet  has  a  genius  for  ruling.  Well !  I  don't  know  but 
she  may  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  did  you  ever  see  any  lady  that  had 
not  some  slight  touch  of  a  genius  that  way,  my  Goodikin  ?  I  know 
a  lady — but  I  will  say  nothing,  lest  I  bring  mischief  about  my  ears 
— nay,  she  is  very  obedient,  too,  that  little  lady  I  allude  to,  and 
has  a  genius  for  being  ruled  withal.  Heaven  bless  her  always ! 
Not  a  bad  little  dame  at  all.  She  and  I  did  aye  veiy  weel  to- 
gether ;  and  '  'tweel,  it  was  not  every  one  that  could  have  done 
with  her.* 

The  first  impressions  had  apparently  been  favourable  on 
both  sides.  Mrs.  Carlyle  wrote  brightly  to  him  both 
about  the  Bath  House  affair  and  everything  else.  Her 
letters  during  his  absence  were  exceptionally  lively  and  en- 


New  Plans.  313 

tertaining.  The  reader  of  the  '  Letters  and  Memorials" 
will  remember  her  adventures  with  the  dog  next  door  and 
the  whisky  bottle  which  had  obtained  its  silence.  Carlyle 
was  enchanted  with  her,  most  especially  because  at  Scots- 
brig  he  was  suffering  from  a  similar  cause. 

That  dog  (he  says)  was  more  or  less  the  soitow  of  my  life  all  the 
time  you  were  away,  though  I  said  nothing  of  it.  Bow-wow-wow 
at  all  houi-s  of  the  day,  especially  at  night  when  one  was  shut  in. 
Never  was  bottle  of  whisky  better  bestowed  if  it  quiet  the  dam- 
nable brute  even  for  a  month  or  two.  Alas  !  one  cannot  get  much 
quiet  in  this  world.  Here  in  mornings  when  one  awakes  before 
five  there  is  a  combination  of  noises,  the  arithmetical  catalogue  of 
which  might  interest  a  mind  of  sensibility — cocks,  pigs,  calves, 
dogs,  clogs  of  women's  feet,  creaking  of  door-hinges,  masons  break- 
ing whinstone,  and  carts  loading  stones.  But  I  have  learnt  to  care 
nothing  about  it.  I  think  it  is  a  law  of  Nature,  and  are  not  they 
poor  brothers  and  sisters — poor  old  mothers,  too,  toiling  away  in 
the  midst  of  it  ?  Once  or  twice  I  have  fallen  asleep  in  the  midst 
of  the  whole  concert  of  discords.  We  shall  be  quiet  one  day. 
The  destinies,  I  think,  do  mean  that  at  least  for  us. 

*  Cromwell '  done  with,  he  was  beginning  to  consider  to 
what  next  he  should  put  his  hand,  and  '  Frederick  the 
Great'  was  already  hanging  before  him  as  a  possibility. 
He  had  read  Preuss's  book  in  the  year  preceding.  He 
was  now  meditating  an  expedition  to  Berlin  to  learn  more 
about  this  '  greatest  of  modern  men.'  His  stay  in  Scot- 
land was  to  be  short.  After  a  fortnight  of  it  he  was 
thinking  about  his  return.  How  it  was  to  be  was  the 
question.  The  railway  from  London  only  reached  to  Pres- 
ton, and  the  alternative  was  equally  horrible — the  coach 
from  Carlisle  thither  or  the  steamer  to  Liverpool.  One 
day  he  thought  he  would  go  *  to  the  whale '  again,  and 
say  to  it,  '  Swallow  me  at  once,'  *  thou  doest  it  at  once.' 
The  whale  ultimately  proved  the  least  desirable  of  the 
various  monstei's.  He  chose  the  coach,  and  was  at  home 
again  just  when  'Cromwell'  was  appearing. 

»  VoL  L  p.  360. 


316  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

The  reception  of  it  was,  as  might  be  expected,  in  the 
highest  degree  favourable.  There  was  little  to  offend,  and 
everyone  was  ready  to  welcome  a  fair  picture  of  the  great 
Protector.  The  sale  w^as  rapid,  and  after  a  few  months,  as 
the  hiterest  grew,  fresh  materials  were  contributed  from 
unexpected  quarters,  to  be  added  in  new  editions.  For 
the  moment,  liowever,  Carlyle  was  left  idle.  He  came 
back  to  find  literally  that  he  had  nothing  to  do.  '  Fred- 
erick '  was  still  but  a  thought,  and  of  all  conditions  that 
of  want  of  occupation  was  what  he  was  least  fitted  to  en- 
dure. Fie  had  drawn  his  breath  when  he  ended  his  work 
in  September.  He  had  felt  idyllic.  Fie  and  his  poor 
w^fe  had  climbed  the  hill  together  by  a  tliorny  road.  He 
had  arrived  at  the  height  of  his  fame.  He  was  admired, 
praised,  and  honoured  by  all  England  and  America ;  noth- 
ing, he  said,  could  now  be  more  natural  than  that  they  should 
sit  still  and  look  round  them  a  little  in  quiet.  Quiet,  unhap- 
pily, was  the  one  thing  impossible.  He  admired  quiet  as 
he  admired  silence,  only  theoretically.  Work  was  life  to 
him.  Idleness  was  torture.  The  cushion  on  which  he 
tried  to  sit  still  was  set  with  spines.  Mrs.  Carlyle  says 
briefly  that  after  he  came  back  '  she  was  kept  in  a  sort  of 
worry.'  The  remedy  which  was  tried  was  worse  than  the 
disease.  Mr.  Baring  and  Lady  Harriet  invited  them  both 
for  a  long  visit  to  Bay  House,  near  Alverstoke  in  Hamp- 
shire. They  went  in  the  middle  of  N^ovember  and  re- 
mained till  the  end  of  the  year.  Carlyle,  to  some  moder- 
ate extent,  seems  to  have  enjoyed  himself — certainly  his 
wife  did  not. 

During    the    middle   of    their   stay   he   wrote   to   his 
brother : — 

December  1.  1845. 
We  live  here  i±i  the  most  complete  state  of  Do-nothingism  that 
I  have  ever  in  my  life  had  experience  of.     The  day  goes  along  in 
consulting  how  the  day  shall  go.     For  most  part  I  snatch  an  ef- 
fectual ride  uj^on  my  strong  horse  out  of  the  whirlpool.     I  read  a 


Ymi  to  the  Barings.  317 

little  Grerman  with  the  lady  after  dinner,  listen  to  some  music, 
to  miich  witty  talk,  and  that  is  all.  I  soem  to  improve  in  health 
a  little,  but  still  do  not  sleep.  The  habit  of  utter  idleness  getting 
possession  of  me  is  verj'  sti-ange.  How  long  we  shall  be  able  to 
stand  such  a  regimen  is  not  made  out.  One  would  think  not  veiy 
long!  The  prospect  of  such  a  thing  /or ///e  was  absolutely  equal 
to  death.  Meanwhile  it  cannot  but  be  said  to  be  pleasant  enough, 
and  perhaps  not  useless  for  a  season. 

To  Mrs.  Cai'lyle  the  visit  was  neither  pleasant  nor  use- 
ful, probably  the  opposite  of  both. 

Six  weeks  (she  wrote  to  her  friend  Mrs.  Kussell  when  it  was 
over)  I  have  been  doing  absolutely  nothing  but  playing  at  battle- 
dore and  shuttlecock,  chess,  talking  nonsense,  and  getting  rid  of 
a  certain  fmction  of  this  mortal  life  as  cleverly  and  uselessly  as 
possible.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  sumptuosity  and  elegance  of 
the  whole  thing,  nor  its  uselessness.  Oh  dear  me  !  I  wonder  why 
so  many  people  wish  for  high  position  and  great  wealth  when  it  is 
such  an  open  secret  to  what  all  that  amounts  in  these  days  ; 
merely  to  emancipating  people  from  all  the  practical  difficulties 
which  might  teach  them  the  facts  of  things  and  sympathy  with 
their  fellow-creatures.  This  Lady  Harriet  Baring  whom  we  have 
just  been  staying  with  is  the  cleverest  woman  out  of  sight  that  I 
ever  saw  in  my  life — and  I  have  seen  all  our  distinguished  author- 
esses. Moreover  she  is  full  of  energy  and  sincerity,  and  has,  I  am 
sure,  an  excellent  heart.  Yet  so  perverted  has  she  been  by  the 
training  and  lifelong  humouring  incident  to  her  high  position, 
that  I  question  if  in  her  whole  life  she  has  done  as  much  for  her 
fellow-creatures  as  my  mother  in  one  year;  or  whether  she  will 
ever  break  through  the  cobwebs  she  is  entangled  in  so  as  to  be 
any  other  than  the  most  amusing  and  graceful  woman  of  her  time. 
The  sight  of  such  a  woman  should  make  one  veiy  content  with 
one's  own  trials,  even  when  they  feel  to  be  rather  hard. ' 

Mrs.  Biiller  was  turning  out  a  true  propliet.  Mrs. 
Carlyle  and  Lady  Harriet  did  not  suit  eacli  other.  Mrs. 
Carlyle  did  not  shut  her  ej^es  to  tlie  noble  lady's  distin- 
guished qualities :  but  even  these  qualities  themselves 
might  be  an  obstacle  to  cordial  intimacy.     People  do  not 

»  Letters  and  Memorialise  vol  i.  p.  867. 


SI 8  Carlyleh  Life  in  London. 

usually  take  to  those  who  excel  in  the  points  where  they 
have  themselves  been 'accustomed  to  reign  supreme.  Mrs. 
Carlyle  knew  that  she  was  far  cleverer  than  the  general 
run  of  lady  adorers  who  worshipped  her  husband.  She 
knew  also  that  he  was  aware  of  her  superiority  ;  that,  by 
her  talent  as  well  as  her  character,  she  had  a  hold  upon 
him  entirely  her  own,  and  that  he  only  laughed  good- 
naturedly  at  the  homage  they  paid  him.  But  she  could 
not  feel  as  easy  about  Lady  Harriet.  She  saw  that  Car- 
lyle admired  her  brilliancy,  and  was  gratified  by  her 
queenly  esteem.  To  speak  of  jealousy  in  the  ordinary 
sense  would  be  extravagantly  absurd  ;  but  there  are  many 
forms  of  jealousy,  and  the  position  of  a  wife,  when  her 
husband  is  an  intimate  friend  of  another  woman,  is  a  dif- 
ficult and  delicate  one.  If  there  is  confidence  and  affec- 
tion between  the  ladies  themselves,  or  if  the  friend  has  a 
proper  perception  of  a  wife's  probable  susceptibilities,  and 
is  careful  to  prevent  them  from  being  wounded,  or  if  the 
wife  herself  is  indifferent  and  incapable  of  resentment,  all 
is  well,  and  the  relation  may  be  delightful.  In  the  present 
case  there  were  none  of  these  conditions.  ]^o  one  could 
suspect  Lady  Harriet  Baring  of  intending  to  hurt  Mrs. 
Carlyle  ;  but  either  she  never  observed  her  discomfort,  or 
she  thought  it  too  ridiculous  to  notice.  She  doubtless 
tried  in  her  own  lofty  way  to  be  kind  to  Mrs.  Carlyle,  and 
Mrs.  Carlyle,  for  her  husband's  sake,  tried  to  like  Lady 
Harriet.  But  it  did  not  answer  on  either  side,  and  in 
such  cases  it  is  best  to  leave  things  to  take  their  natural 
course.  When  two  people  do  not  agree,  it  is  a  mistake  to 
force  them  into  intimacy.  They  should  remain  on  the 
footing  of  neutral  acquaintance,  and  are  more  likely  to 
grow  into  friends  the  less  the  direct  effort  to  make  them 
so.  Gloriana  may  have  a  man  for  a  subject  without  im- 
pairing his  dignity — a  w^oman  in  such  a  position  becomes 
a  dependent.     Carlyle  unfortunately  could  not  see  the  dis- 


Visit  to  the  Barings.  319 

tinction.  To  such  a  lady  a  certain  homage  seemed  to  be 
due  ;  and  if  liis  wife  resisted,  lie  was  angry.  When  Lady 
Harriet  required  her  presence,  she  told  John  Carjyle  tliat 
she  was  obliged  to  go,  or  the  lady  would  quarrel  with  her, 
*  and  that  meant  a  quarrel  with  her  husband.' '  The  Ked 
Cross  Knight  was  brought  to  evil  thoughts  of  his  *  Una ' 
by  the  enchantments  of  Archiraage.  To  a  proud  fiery 
woman  like  Mrs.  Carlyle  the  sense  that  Lady  Harriet  could 
come  in  any  way  between  her  husband  and  herself  was  in- 
tolerable. 

Things  had  not  come  to  this  point  during  the  Bay 
House  visit,  but  were  tending  fast  in  that  direction,  and 
were  soon  to  reach  it. 

In  February  1846  a  new  edition  was  needed  of  the 
'  Cromwell.'  Fresh  letters  of  Oliver  had  been  sent  which 
required  to  be  inserted  according  to  date  ;  a  process,  Carlyle 
said,  '  requiring  one's  most  excellent  talent,  as  of  shoe- 
cobbling,  really  that  kind  of  talent  carried  to  a  high  pitch.' 

He  had  *  to  unhoop  his  tub,  which  already  held  water,' 
as  he  sorrowfully  put  his  case  to  Mr.  Erskine, '  and  insert 
new  staves.' 

To  T.  Erskine. 

Feb.  28,  1846. 
I  must  not  complain ;  I  am  bound  to  rejoice  rather :  but  I  did 
not  so  much  need  the  new  money  I  am  to  get ;  and  I  can  honestly 
say  the  feeling  of  faithfulness  to  a  hero's  great  memory  and  to  my 
own  small  task  in  regard  to  that  is  nearly  the  only  consideration 
that  practically  weighs  with  me.  The  unmusical  or  musical  voice 
of  critics,  totally  ignorant  of  the  matter  for  most  part,  and  of  most 
insincere  nature  at  any  rate,  gives  me  little  pain  and  little  pleasure 
any  more.  We  shall  be  dead  soon,  and  then  it  is  only  the  fact  of 
our  work  that  will  speak  for  us  through  all  eternity.  One  thing  I 
do  recognise  with  much  satisfaction,  that  the  general  verdict  of 
our  poor  loose  public  seems  to  be  that  Oliver  icas  a  genuine  man, 
and  if  so,  surely  to  them  a  very  surprising  one.  It  will  do  them 
much  good,  poor  bewildered  iDlockheads,  to  understand  that  no 

»  Undated  letter  of  Mrs.  Carlyle  to  John  Carlyle. 


320  '      Carlyl^s  Life  in  London. 

great  man  was  ever  other ;  that  this  notion  of  theirs  about  '  Ma- 
chiavelism,'  'Policy,'  and  so  forth,  is  on  the  whole  what  one  might 
call  blasphemous — a  real  doctrine  of  devils. 

The  Barings  were  at  Addiscombe  in  the  spring,  and  it 
was  arranged  that  Mrs.  Carlyle  should  be  with  them  there 
for  the  benefit  of  country  air ;  he  remaining  at  his  work, 
but  joining  them  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays.  She  could 
not  sleep,  she  did  not  like  it.  He  w^io  had  meant  every- 
thing for  the  best,  tried  to  comfort  her  as  well  as  he  could. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Addiscombe. 

Chelsea :  April  8. 
A  considerable  gap  is  made  in  the  '  Cromwell '  rubbish.  It  is 
fast  disappearing  before  me.  Heigho  !  but  my  existence  is  not 
now  so  haggard  as  it  was  for  some  days  past.  The  sun  is  shin- 
ing, the  work  going  on  all  day.  One  has  many  sad  reflections, 
but  they  are  not  unprofitable  wholly,  nor  the  worse  for  being 
sad.  '  No  man  can  help  another,'  sighed  the  melancholy  Pesta- 
lozzi,  which  is  but  partJy  true.  A  kind  and  trustful  word  is  very 
helpful  from  one  to  another.  Oh,  my  poor  Goody,  let  us  en- 
deavor to  be  wise  and  just  and  good  !  Nothing  more  is  required 
of  mortals.  That  is  a  fact  one  forgets  sometimes.  I  am  very  sorry 
to  hear  of  you  '  pitted  against  Chaos '  all  night,  and  coming  off 
second  best.  My  poor  little  woman  !  But  you  will  be  home  again 
soon.  I  will  at  least  try  to  help  you  against  Chaos,  now  and  hence- 
forth as  heretofore.  I  will  do  my  best  in  that.  For  one  thing,  I 
really  v/ish  you  could  find  an  eligible  house  somewhere,  out  under 
the  quiet  sky,  removed  fairly  from  these  tumults  and  loud-braying 
discords  of  every  kind,  which  it  is  growing  really  horrible  and 
miserable  to  me  to  spend  the  remnant  of  my  days  among.  *  Like 
living  in  a  madhouse,'  as  the  lady  says.  Truly  so,  and  one  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it  either. 

Evidently  he  was  labouring  at  liis  task  under  complica- 
tions of  worry  and  trouble.  Perhaps  both  he  and  she 
would  have  been  better  off  after  all  at  Craigenputtock. 
The  '  stitching  and  cobbling,'  however,  was  gone  through 
with.  'Cromwell'  thus  enlarged  was  now  in  its  final 
form ;  and  as  soon  as  it  was  done,  he  took  a  step  in  con- 


Letter,  to  Sir  Rohert  Fed.  321 

nection  with  it  which,  I  believe,  he  never  took  before  or 
after  with  any  of  his  writings :  he  presented  a  copy  of  it 
to  the  Prime  Minister.  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  hitherto  been 
no  favourite  of  his,  neither  Peel  nor  any  one  of  the  exist- 
insr  ireneration  of  statesmen  ;  Sir  Jabesh  Windbaj^  in  'Past 
and  Present '  representing  his  generic  conception  of  them. 
But  Peel  was  now  repealing  the  Corn-laws;  not  talking  of 
it,  but  doing  it ;  and  imperilling  in  one  righteous  act  his 
own  political  fortune.  That  had  something  of  greatness 
in  it,  especially  with  Carlyle,  who  had  believed  heroic 
sacrifice  of  self  to  be  an  impossible  virtue  in  a  Parliament- 
ary leader.  He  discovered  Peel  to  be  a  real  man  ;  and  he 
sent  his  *  Cromwell '  to  him  with  the  following  letter : — 

Chelsea:  June  18,  1846. 

Sir^ — "Will  you  be  pleased  to  accept  from  a  very  private  citizen 
of  the  community  this  copy  of  a  book  which  he  has  been  occupied 
in  putting  together,  while  you,  our  most  conspicuous  citizen,  were 
victoriously  labouring  in  quite  othe  •  work  ?  Labour,  so  far  as  it 
is  tme,  and  sanctionable  by  the  Supreme  Worker  and  World 
Founder,  may  claim  brotherhood  with  labour.  The  great  work 
and  the  little  are  alike  definable  as  an  extricating  of  the  true  from 
its  imprisonment  among  the  false ;  a  \'ictoriou8  evoking  of  order 
and  fact  from  disorder  and  semblance  of  fact.  In  any  case,  citi- 
zens who  feel  grateful  to  a  citizen  are  permitted  and  enjoined  to 
testify  that  feeling  each  in  such  manner  as  he  can.  Let  this  poor 
labour  of  mine  be  a  small  testimony  of  that  sort  to  a  late  great 
and  valiant  laboiu:  of  yours,  and  claim  recei^tion  as  such. 

The  book,  should  you  ever  find  leisure  to  read  and  master  it, 
may  perhai^s  have  interest  for  you — may  perhaps— who  knows? — 
have  admonition,  exhortation,  in  various  ways  instruction  and  en- 
couragement for  yet  other  labours  which  England,  in  a  voiceless 
but  most  impressive  manner,  still  expects  and  demands  of  you. 
The  authentic  words  and  actings  of  the  noblest  govenior  England 
ever  had  may  well  have  interest  for  all  govemora  of  England  ;  may 
well  be,  as  all  Scripture  is,  as  all  genuine  words  and  actings  are, 
*  profttal)le  ' — profitable  for  reproof,  for  correction,  and  for  edify- 
ing and  strengthening  withal.  Hansard's  Debates  are  not  a  kind 
of  literature  I  have  been  familiar  with  ;  nor  indeed  is  the  arena 
Vol.  III.-21 


322  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

they  proceed  from  much  more  than  a  distress  to  me  in  these  days. 
Loud-sounding  clamour  and  rhetorical  vocables  grounded  not  on 
fact,  nor  even  on  belief  of  fact,  one  knows  from  of  old  whither  all 
that  and  wliat  depends  on  it  is  bound.  But  by-and-by,  as  I  be- 
lieve, all  England  will  say  what  already  many  a  one  begins  to  feel, 
that  whatever  were  the  spoken  unveracities  of  Parliament,  and  they 
are  many  on  all  hands,  lamentable  to  gods  and  men,  here  has  a 
great  veracity  been  done  in  Parliament,  considerably  our  greatest 
for  many  years  past — a  strenuous,  courageous,  and  needful  thing,  to 
which  all  of  us  that  so  see  it  are  bound  to  give  our  loyal  recogni- 
tion and  furtherance  as  we  can. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

Your  obliged  fellow-citizen  and  obedient  servant, 

T.  Cablyle.^ 

Peel  answered : — 

Whitehall :  June  23,  1846. 
Sir, — "Whatever  may  have  been  the  pressure  of  my  j)ublic  en- 
gagements, it  has  not  been  so  overwhelming  as  to  prevent  me  from 
being  familiar  with  your  exertions  in  another  department  of  labour, 
as  incessant  and  severe  as  that  which  I  have  undergone. 

I  am  the  better  enabled,  therefore,  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
your  favourable  opinion ;  and  to  thank  you,  not  out  of  mere  cour- 
tesy, but  very  sincerely,  for  the  volumes  which  you  have  sent  for 
my  acceptance  ;  most  interesting  as  throwing  a  new  light  upon  a 
very  important  chapter  of  our  history ;  and  gratifying  to  me  as  a 
token  of  your  personal  esteem. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be.  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 
T.  Carlyle,  Esq.  Eobekt  Peel. 

The  success  of  this  book  had  been  a  real  enjoyment  to 
Carlyle — enjoyment  in  the  true  noble  sense — he  felt  that 
he  had  done  a  good  work,  and  had  done  it  effectively. 

To  T.  ErsUne. 

Chelsea  :  July  11,  1846. 
The  second  edition  of  *  Cromwell '  w^hich  has  kept  me  sunk  all 
spring  and  summer  in  a  very  ignoble  kind  of  labour,  is  now  off  my 

1  There  are  two  versions  of  this  letter  among  Carlyle's  papers,  not  quite 
identical ;  I  do  not  know  which  was  sent.  The  differences  are  unimportant, 
except  to  show  that  the  letter  was  carefully  composed. 


SiLCC€88  of  *  Cromwell?  323 

hands  for  ever.  The  lively  interest  the  people  have  taken  in  that 
heavy  Jt)ook — the  numbers  that  read,  and  in  some  good  measure 
understand  something  of  it :  all  tliis  is  really  surprising  to  me.  I 
take  it  as  one  other  symptom  of  the  rapidly  deepening  seriousness 
of  the  public  mind,  which  certainly  has  call  enough  to  be  serious 
at  present.  The  conviction,  too,  among  all  persons  of  much  mo- 
ment seems  to  be  pretty  unanimous,  that  this  is  actually  the  his- 
tory of  Oliver  ;  that  the  former  histories  of  him  have  been  extra- 
ordinarj'  mistakes — very  fallacious  histories — as  of  a  man  walking 
about  for  two  centuries  in  a  universal  masked  ball  (of  hypocrites 
and  their  hypocrisies  spoken  and  done),  with  a  mask  upon  him, 
this  man,  which  no  cunningest  artist  could  get  off.  They  tried  it 
now  this  way,  now  that :  still  the  mask  was  felt  to  remain  :  the 
mask  would  not  come  off.  At  length  a  lucky  thought  strikes  us. 
This  man  is  in  his  natural  face.  That  is  the  mask  of  this  one ! 
Of  all  which  I  am  heartily  glad.  In  fact,  it  often  strikes  me  as 
the  fellest  virulence  of  all  the  misery  that  lies  upon  us  in  these 
distracted  generations,  this  blackest  form  of  ina-edulily  we  have 
all  fallen  into,  that  great  men,  too,  were  paltry  shuffling  Jesuits, 
as  we  ourselves  are,  and  meant  nothing  true  in  their  work,  or 
mainly  meant  lies  and  hunger  in  their  work,  even  as  we  ourselves 
do.  There  will  never  be  anything  but  an  enchanted  world,  till 
that  baleful  phantasm  of  the  pit  be  chased  thither  again,  and  very 
stei-nly  bidden  abide  there.  Alas !  alas !  It  often  seems  to  me 
as  if  poor  Loyola  and  that  icorld  Jesuitry  of  which  he  is  the  sacra- 
ment and  symbol,  was  the  blackest,  most  godless  spot  in  the  whole 
history  of  Adam's  posterity  :  a  solemn  wedding  together  in  God's 
high  name  of  tnith  and  falsehood — as  if  the  two  were  now  one 
flesh  and  could  not  subsist  apart — whereby,  as  some  one  now  says, 
we  are  all  become  Jesuits,  and  the  falsity  of  them  has,  as  it  were, 
obtained  its  apotheosis  and  is  henceforth  a  consecrated  falsity. 

My  wife  went  off  a  few  days  ago  to  Lancashire.  She  had  been 
in  a  very  weakly  way  ever  since  our  summer  heats  came  on,  had 
much  need  of  quiet  and  fresh  air.  ...  I,  too,  am  tattered 
and  fretted  into  great  sonow  of  heart ;  but  that  is  partly  the  na- 
ture of  the  beast,  I  believe — that  will  be  difficult  to  cure  in  this 
world. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 

A.D.  1846-7.     ^T.  51-52. 

Domestic  confusions — Two  letters  from  Mazzini — Mrs.  Carlyle  at 
Seaforth — Clouds  which  will  not  disperse — Gloriana — Tour 
with  the  Barings  in  Dumfriesshire — Moffat  and  its  attraction 
— Carlyle  at  Scotsbrig. 

It  was  hard  on  Carlyle  that,  while  engaged  with  work  into 
which  he  was  throwing  his  entire  heart  and  soul,  he 
should  be  disturbed  and  perplexed  with  domestic  confu- 
sions. But  it  was  his  fate — a  fate,  perhaps,  wliich  could 
not  be  avoided  ;  and  those  confusions  were  to  grow  and 
gather  into  a  thick  black  cloud  which  overshadowed  his  life 
for  many  weary  years.  "When  Mrs.  Carlyle  returned  to  him 
from  Addiscombe,  it  was,  as  she  said,  *  with  a  mind  all 
churned  to  froth  ' — not  a  pleasant  condition.  Carlyle,  in 
spite  of  his  good  i-esolutions,  was  occasionally  '  a  little  ill- 
haired.'  At  last  things  went  utterly  awry.  She  set  off 
alone  to  the  Paulets  at  the  beginning  of  July.  There  was 
a  violent  scene  when  they  parted.  Her  words,  if  seldom 
smoother  than  oil,  were  'very  swords  '  when  she  was  really 
angry.  She  did  not  write  on  her  arrival,  as  she  had  prom- 
ised to  do,  and  she  drew  these  sad  lines  from  him  in  con- 
sequence : — 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Seafm'th. 

Chelsea :  July  6,  1846. 
My  Dear, — I  hope  it  is  only  displeasure  or  embarrassed  estrange- 
ment from  me,  and  not  any  accident  or  illness  of  your  own,  that 
robs  me  of  a  note  this  morning.     I  will  not  torment  myself  with 
that  new  uneasiness.     But  you  did  expressly  promise  to  announce 


Domestic  Clouds.  325 

your  arrival  straightway.  This  is  not  good  :  but  perhaps  an  un- 
friendly or  miserable  letter  would  have  been  worse,  so  I  will  be 
as  patient  as  I  can.  Certainly  we  never  parted  before  in  such  a 
manner ;  and  all  for — literally  nothing.  But  I  will  not  enter 
upon  that  at  all.  CJomposure  and  reflection  at  a  distance  from  all 
causes  of  irritation  or  freaks  of  diseased  fancy  will  show  us  both 
more  clearly  what  the  God's  truth  of  the  matter  is.  May  God  give 
us  strength  to  follow  piously  and  with  all  loyal  fidelity  what  that  is ! 
On  coming  home  on  Saturday  in  miserable  enough  humour,  the 
saddest  I  think  I  have  been  in  for  ten  years  and  more,  I  directly 
got  out  my  work  and  sate  down  to  it,  as  the  one  remedy  I  had. 
Yesterday  I  suppose  you  fancied  me  happy  at  Addiscombe.  Alas ! 
I  was  in  no  humour  for  anything  of  that  laughing  nature.  I  sate 
digging  all  day  in  the  nibbish  heaps,  &c.  It  was  a  day  of  the 
resurrection  of  all  sad  and  great  and  tender  things  within  me — 
sad  as  the  very  death,  yet  not  unprofitable,  I  believe.  Adieu, 
dearest — for  that  is,  and  if  madness  prevail  not  may  forever  be, 
your  authentic  title.  Be  quiet  ;  do  not  doubt  of  me — do  not 
yield  to  the  enemy  of  us  all,  and  may  God  bless  thee  always. 

T.  C. 

Among  Mrs.  Carlyle's  papers  are  two  letters — the  first 
of  them  dated  only  July,  yet  in  answer  to  one  which  she 
must  have  written  before  leaving  London,  showing  that 
in  her  distress  she  had  taken  the  strong  step  of  consulting 
a  friend  on  the  course  which  she  ought  to  follow.  Happily 
she  could  have  consulted  no  one  who  could  have  advised 
her  more  wisely. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

London :  July,  1846. 
My  dear  Friend, — I  was  yesterday  almost  the  whole  day  out, 
and  did  not  receive  your  notes,  except  in  the  evening,  when  it  was 
too  late  to  answer  them.  Your  few  words  sound  sad,  deeply,  I 
will  not  say  in-eparably  sad ;  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that  none  can 
help  you  but  yourself.  It  is  only  you  who  can,  by  a  calm,  dispas- 
sionate, fair  re-examination  of  the  past,  send  back  to  nothingness 
the  ghosts  and  phantoms  that  you  have  been  conjuring  up.  It  is 
only  you  who  can  teach  yourself  that,  whatever  the  present  may 
be,  you  must  front  it  with  dignity,  with  a  clear  perception  of  all 
your  duties,  with  a  due  reverence  to  your  immortal  aoul,  wi*h  ft 


326  Carlyle's  Life  m  London. 

religious  faith  in  times  yet  to  come,  that  are  to  dawn  under  the 
approach  of  other  cloudless  suns.  I  could  only  point  out  to  you 
the  fulfilment  of  duties  which  can  make  life — not  happy — what 
can  ?  but  earnest,  sacred,  and  resignated  ;  '  but  I  would  make  you 
frown  or  scorn.  "We  have  a  different  concej^tion  of  life,  and  are 
condemned  here  down  to  walk  on  two  parallels.  Still  it  is  the 
feeling  of  those  duties  that  saves  me  from  the  atheism  of  despair, 
and  leads  me  through  a  life  every  day  more  barren  and  burden- 
some, in  a  sort  of  calm  composed  manner — such,  I  repeat,  as  the 
consciousness  of  something  everlasting  within  us  claims  from 
every  living  mortal.  For  I  now  most  coolly  and  deliberately  do 
declare  to  you,  that  pai-tly  through  what  is  known  to  you,  partly 
through  things  that  will  never  be  known,  I  am  carrying  a  burden 
even  heavier  than  you,  and  have  undergone  even  bitterer  decep- 
tions than  you  have.  But  by  dint  of  repeating  to  myself  that 
there  is  no  happiness  under  the  moon,  that  life  is  a  self-sacrifice 
meant  for  some  higher  and  happier  thing  :  that  to  have  a  few 
loving  beings,  or  if  none,  to  have  a  mother  watching  you  from 
Italy  or  from  Heaven,  it  is  all  the  same,  ought  to  be  quite  enough 
to  preserve  us  from  falling,  and  by  falling,  parting.  I  have  mus- 
tered up  strength  to  go  on,  to  work  at  my  task  as  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  make  it  out,  till  I  reach  the  grave ;  the  grave  for 
which  the  hour  will  come,  and  is  fast  approaching  without  my 
loudly  calling  for  it. 

Awake,  arise,  dear  friend !  Beset  by  pain  or  not,  we  must  go 
on  with  a  sad  smile  and  a  practical  encouragement  from  one  an- 
other. We  have  something  of  our  own  to  care  about,  something 
godlike  that  we  must  not  yield  to  any  living  creature,  whoever  it 
be.  Your  life  proves  an  empty  thing,  you  say  !  Empty !  Do  not 
blaspheme.  Have  you  never  done  good  ?  Have  you  never  loved  ? 
Think  of  your  mother,  and  do  good — set  the  eye  to  Providence. 
It  is  not  as  a  mere  piece  of  irony  that  God  has  placed  you  here  ; 
not  as  a  mere  piece  of  irony  that  He  has  given  us  those  aspira- 
tions, those  yearnings  after  happiness  that  are  now  making  us 
both  unhappy.  Can't  you  trust  Him  a  little  longer  ?  How  long 
will  you  remain  at  Seaforth  ?  Does  he  himself  propose  to  go  any- 
where? I  was  coming  to  see  you  on  Saturday.  Write  if  and 
when  it  does  good  even  homceopathically  to  you,  and  be  assured 
that  to  me  it  will  always  do.  Ever  yours, 

Joseph  Mazzini. 

*  Mazzini's  Englifih,  generally  excelleat,  tilips  occasionally  in  a  word. 


The  BlHhday  PrsBetU.  327 

Either  this  letter  or  her  own  reflections  led  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle,  after  a  day's  delay,  to  write  softly  to  her  husband. 
He,  poor  man,  as  innocent  of  any  thought  of  wrong,  as 
incapable  of  understanding  what  he  had  done  to  raise  such 
a  tornado,  as  my  Uncle  Toby  himself  could  have  been, 
was  almost  piteously  grateful. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle^  Senforlh. 

Chelsea :  July  7. 
Thousand  thanks,  dear  Goody,  for  thy  good  little  letter !  It 
has  lifted  a  mountain  from  my  poor  inner  man.  Oh,  if  you  could 
see  there  the  real  fact  of  the  thing ;  verily,  it  would  all  be  well. 
It  would  indeed — as  by  God's  blessing  it  shall  yet  be,  and  so  let 
us  say  not  a  word  more  of  it ;  but  pray  earnestly  from  our  very  in- 
most heart  that  we  may  be  enabled  to  do  all  that  is  true  and  good, 
and  be  helpful,  not  hindersome  to  one  another  ;  and  in  spite  of 
our  anomalous  lot  be  found  as  wise  ones,  not  as  foolish.  For  thy 
great  unwearied  goodness,  and  tme  ever-watchful  affection,  mixed 
as  it  is  with  human  infirmity,  oh,  my  dearest,  woe  to  me  for  ever 
if  I  could  forget  it  or  be  in  any  way  unjust  to  it !  But  let  us  say 
nothing.  Let  us  each  try  to  see,  try  to  do,  better  always  and  bet- 
ter ;  and  one  thing  does  remain  ever  dear  to  me,  ever  sure  for 
both  of  us.  No  honourable,  truly  good,  and  noble  thing  we  do  or 
have  done  for  one  another,  but  will  bear  its  good  fruit.  That  is  as 
true  as  truth  itself — a  faith  that  should  never  fail  us. 

On  July  13  he  WTote,  enclosing  his  never-forgotten 
birthday  present. 

I  send  thee  a  poor  little  card-case,  a  small  memorial  of  Bastille 
day,  and  of  another  day  also  very  important  to  me  and  thee.  My 
poor  little  Jeannie !  no  heart  ever  wished  another  more  tmly 
*  many  happy  returns  ; '  or,  if  *  happy  returns '  are  not  in  our 
vocabulary,  then  *  wise  returns,'  wise  and  time  and  brave,  which, 
after  all,  are  the  only  *  happiness,'  as  I  conjecture,  that  we  have 
any  right  to  look  for  in  this  segment  of  eternity  that  we  are  tra- 
versing together,  thou  and  I.  God  bless  thee,  and  know  thou 
always,  in  spite  of  the  chimsems  and  illusions,  that  thou  ai't  dearer 
to  me  than  any  earthly  creature.  That  t5  a  fact,  if  it  can  be  of 
any  use  to  thy  poor  soul  to  know  ;  and  so  accept  my  little  gift  and 
kiss  it  as  I  have  done,  and  8ay»  in  tlie  name  of  Heavea  it  Bhall  yet 


398  Carlyl&s  Life  in  London. 

all  be  well,  and  my  poor  husband  is  the  man  I  have  always  known 
him  from  of  old,  is  and  will  be. 

This  is  the  letter  of  which  she  speaks  so  touchingly  in 
her  reply/  the  letter  which  had  been  delayed  at  the  Sea- 
forth  post-office.  She,  agitated  by  a  thousand  thoughts, 
had  feared  that  he  had  let  the  day  pass  without  writing 
to  her,  and  had  been  thrown  into  a  '  tumult  of  wretched- 
ness.' She  had  written  again,  it  appears,  to  Mazzini ;  for 
from  him,  too,  came  another  letter,  tenderly  sympathetic, 
yet  wise  and  supremely  honourable  to  him.  No  ghostly 
confessor  could  have  been  more  judicious. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Seaforth. 

July  15. 
My  dear  Friend, — I  conld  not  write  yesterday,  as  I  intended,  on 
account  of  the  death  of  Scipioni  Petrucci's  wife.  .  .  .  Yes ; 
*  sad  as  death,  but  not  basely  sad.'  That  is  what  you  must  be, 
what  I  want  you  to  be,  and  what  a  single  moment  of  truly  earnest 
thought  and  faith  will  cause  you  to  be.  Pain  and  joy,  decep- 
tion and  fulfilled  hopes  are  just,  as  I  often  said,  the  rain  and 
the  sunshine  that  must  meet  the  traveller  on  his  way.  Bless  the 
Almighty  if  He  has  thought  proper  to  send  the  latter  to  you.  But- 
ton or  wrap  your  cloak  around  you  against  the  first,  but  do  not 
think  a  single  moment  that  the  one  or  the  other  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  end  of  your  journey.  You  know  that ;  but  you  want 
the  faith  that  would  give  you  strength  to  fulfil  the  task  shown  by 
the  intellect.  These  powers  will  give  you  that  too,  if  you  prop- 
erly apply  to  them — afiection,  a  religious  belief,  and  the  dead. 
Y'"ou  have  affection  for  me,  as  I  have  for  you  :  you  would  not  shake 
mine?  You  would  not  add  yourself  to  the  temptations  haunting 
me  to  wreck  and  despair  ?  You  would  not  make  me  worse  than  I 
am  by  your  examj^le,  by  your  showing  yourself  selfish  and  material- 
ist ?  You  believe  in  God.  Don't  you  think,  after  all,  that  this  is 
nothing  but  an  ephemeral  trial ;  and  that  He  will  shelter  you  at 
the  journey's  end  under  the  wdde  wing  of  his  paternal  love  ?  You 
had,  have,  though  invisible  to  the  eyes  of  the  body,  your  mother, 
your  father  too.  Can't  you  commune  with  them  ?  I  know  that  a 
single  moment  of  true  fervent  love  for  them  will  do  more  for  you 

»  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  i.  p.  273. 


Letter  from  Mazzini.     •  329 

than  all  my  talking  !  Were  they  now  what  yon  call  living,  wonld 
you  not  fly  to  them,  hide  your  head  in  their  bosom  and  be  com- 
forted, and  feel  that  you  owe  to  them  to  be  strong — that  they  may 
never  feel  ashamed  of  their  own  Jane  ?  Why,  can  you  think  them 
to  be  dead,  gone  for  ever,  their  loving  immortal  soul  annihilated  ? 
Can  you  think  that  this  vanishing  for  a  time  has  made  you  less 
responsible  to  them  'i  Can  you,  in  a  word,  lore  them  less  because 
they  are  far  from  sight  ?  I  have  often  thought  that  tlie  arrange- 
ment by  which  loved  and  loving  beings  are  to  pass  through  death 
is  nothing  but  the  last  experiment  appointed  by  God  to  human 
love  ;  and  often,  as  you  know  from  me,  I  have  felt  that  a  moment 
of  tme  soul-communing  with  my  dead  fnend  was  opening  a 
source  of  strength  for  me  unhoped  for,  here  down.  Did  we  not 
often  agree  about  these  glimpses  of  the  link  between  ours  and  the 
superior  life  ?  Shall  we  now  begin  to  disagree  ?  Be  strong  then, 
and  true  to  those  you  loved,  and  proud,  nobly  proud  in  the  eyes 
of  those  you  love  or  esteem.  Some  of  them  are  deeply,  silently 
suffering,  but  needing  strength  too,  needing  it  perhaps  from  you. 
Get  up  and  work  ;  do  not  set  yourself  apart  from  us.  When  the 
Evil  One  wanted  to  tempt  Jesus,  he  led  Him  into  a  solitude. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  friend,  ever  yours, 

Joseph  Mazzini. 

The  birthday  present,  and  tlie  words  which  had  come 
with  it,  ought  to  have  made  all  well;  and  yet  it  did  not, 
for  tlie  cause  remained.  The  condition  into  which  she 
liad  wrought  herself  through  her  husband's  Gloriana  wor- 
ship would  have  been  ridiculous  if  it  had  not  been  so 
tragic — tragic  even  in  its  absurdity,  and  tragic  in  its 
consequences.  Fault  there  was  little  on  any  side.  Want 
of  judgment,  perhaps,  and  want  of  perception ;  that  was 
all.  Carlyle  had  formed  an  acquaintance  which  he  valued 
and  she  disliked,  because  she  fancied  that  a  shadow  had 
risen  between  herself  and  him,  which  was  taking  from  her 
part  of  what  belonged  to  her.  A  few  hearty  words,  a 
simple  laugh,  and  the  nightmare  would  have  vanished. 
But  neither  laugh  nor  spoken  word  of  any  such  salutary 
kind  had  been  possible.  Carlyle  in  such  mattei-s  had  no 
more  skill  thau  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  would  have  had. 


330  CarlyU^s  Life  in  London. 

He  was  very  shv,  for  one  thing.  He  wrote  with  exquisite 
tenderness.  In  conversation  he  shrank  from  expressions 
of  affection,  even  at  moments  when  he  felt  most  deeply. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  w^as  keenly  sensitive  to  what  he 
thought  unreasonable  or  silly.  He  was  easily  provoked ; 
and  his  irritation  would  burst  out  in  spurts  of  angry  meta- 
phor, not  to  be. forgotten  from  their  very  point  and  force. 
Thus  his  letters  failed  in  producing  their  full  effect  from 
their  contrast  with  remembered  expressions  which  had 
meant  nothing ;  while,  again,  he  might  himself  naturally 
feel  impatient  when  called  on  to  abandon  friends  whose 
high  character  he  admired,  and  who  had  been  singularly 
kind  to  him,  for  a  cause  which  he  knew  to  be  a  preposter- 
ous creation  of  a  disordered  fancy,  and  which,  in  yielding, 
he  would  have  acknowledged  tacitly -to  have  been  just.  A 
'  man  of  genius,'  especially  one  whose  function  it  was  to 
detect  and  expose  chimseras,  out  to  have  contrived  better. 
Some  strange  mismanagement  there  must  have  been  to 
have  created  such  a  condition  of  things.  Yet  '  a  man  of 
genius'  is  no  better  off  in  such  situations  than  an  ordinary 
mortal.  He  was  confronted  with  a  problem  which  a  per- 
son with  a  thousandth  fraction  of  his  abilities,  either  of 
brain  or  heart,  would  have  solved  in  a  moment  by  a  smile  ; 
yet  he  wandered  from  mistake  to  mistake.  He  continued 
to  argue  with  his  '  bewildered  Goody.' 

Do  not  (he  wrote),  oh,  do  not  fret  thyself  in  that  way  about 
nothing  at  all !  In  thy  tragic  sorrows  and  black  confusions  there 
is  a  noble  element  peering  through,  a  gleam  of  something  divine 
and  true,  which  is  worth  following.  By  God's  blessing  we  shall 
yet  look  back  on  all  those  miserable  things,  and  find  that  a  bless- 
ing beyond  price  did  lie  in  them.  Be  still !  Oh,  be  still,  and  do 
not  fret  thyself  for  any  cobweb  or  brainweb  ! 

This  was  very  well ;  yet  in  the  same  letter  he  had  to 
tell  her  that  a  plan  had  been  arranged  for  the  Barings  to 
go  to  the  Highlands,  that  it  had  been  proposed  that  he 


Glof'iana.  331 

should  accompany  them,  that  lie  did  not  think  he  would, 
but  that  possibly  he  might. 

To  Jane  Welsh 

Chelsea :  July  18. 
I  was  at  the  Barings'  last  night,  saw  BuUer,  &c.  I  do  not  go  to 
Addiscombe  to-day  nor  to-morrow,  nor,  indeed,  for  an  indefinite, 
perhaps  infinite,  time  to  come.  To  the  lady  I  have,  of  course, 
told  nothing,  except  that  you  are  veiy  unwell.  But  she  seems  to 
have  discerned  j^retty  clearly  for  herself  that  our  intercourse  is  to 
be  carried  on  under  different  conditions  henceforth,  or  probably 
to  cease  altogether  before  long  :  to  which  arrangement  she  gives 
signs  of  being  ready  to  conform  with  fully  more  indifierence  than 
I  expected ;  with  no  unkindness  at  all ;  but  with  no  discernible 
regret  either  ;  on  the  whole,  with  the  most  perfect  politeness  and 
graceful  conformity  to  destiny,  such  as  becomes  all  people — such 
as  I,  too,  am  ready  for,  if  it  come  to  that.  That  perversity  of  fate, 
too,  I  can  adopt  or  accept  as  I  have  had  to  do  a  few  in  my  time. 
An  opening  is  left  for  my  meeting  them  about  Carlisle  or  Edin- 
burgh on  their  Scotch  tour ;  but  it  seems  to  be  with  little  expecta- 
tion on  either  side  that  it  will  take  effect.  We  shall  endeavour 
to  see  what  the  real  monition  of  the  matter  is  when  the  time 
arrives. 

Again : — 

July  22. 
I  took  leave  of  the  Barings  last  night.  All  is  handsome  and 
clear  there,  and  nothing  is  wrong ;  except  your  and  my  ill-genius 
may  still  force  it  to  be  so  a  little.  To  the  lady  I  '  said '  simply 
nothing  ;  and  her  altered  manner,  I  suppose,  might  proceed  alto- 
gether from  the  evident  chagrin  and  depression  of  mine.  Was 
that  unnatural  in  me  ?  In  fact,  I  myself  was  heartily  weaiy  of  a 
relation  grown  so  sad,  and  in  my  mind  almost  repented  that  it  had 
ever  been.  But  you  may  take  it  as  a  certainty,  if  you  Hke,  that 
there  is  no  unkindness  or  injustice  harboured  to  you  there  ;  and  if 
you  chose  to -v^Tite  a  little  word  of  news  to  Lady  Harriet,  as  to  how 
you  are  and  what  things  you  are  amidst,  I  do  believe  it  would  be 
a  real  and  very  welcome  kindness  to  her.  Her  intents  towards 
you  and  towards  me,  so  far  as  I  can  read  them,  are  charitable  and 
not  wicked.  My  relation  to  her  is  by  a  very  small  element  in  her 
position,  but  by  a  just  and  laudable  one,  and  I  wish  to  retain  that 


332  Carlyle's  Life  in  Londoii. 

if  I  can  and  give  it  up  if  I  cannot.      Voila  tout  I     Oh,  Goody  dear  I 
be  wise,  and  all  is  well. 

He  was  struggling  in  a  cobweb,  and  w^as  not  on  the  way 
to  extricate  himself.  That  a  man  of  genius  should  enjoy 
the  society  of  a  brilliant  and  gifted  lady  of  high  rank  wa3 
'just  and  laudable,' as  he  called  it.  It  was  natural,  too, 
if  not  laudable,  that  Mrs.  Carlyle  should  not  be  equally 
interested  in  a  person  who  rivalled  her  in  her  own  do- 
main. She,  for  her  own  part,  had  no  wish  to  be  intimate 
with  a  great  lady  who  could  have  no  interest  in  her. 
Carlyle  made  the  mistake  of  trying  to  force  her  into  a 
position  which  she  detested  ;  and  every  step  wliich  he 
took  in  this  direction  only  made  the  irritation  greater. 

His  plans  for  the  summer  had  been  laid  out  independ- 
ent of  the  Highland  tour.  He  was  to  go  first  to  his  mother 
at  Scotsbrig  for  a  few  days,  and  afterwards  to  run  across 
to  Ireland.  The  '  Young  Ireland  '  movement,  the  precur- 
sor of  the  Home  Eule  movement,  w^as  just  then  rising  into 
heat.  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  of  the  '  Nation '  newspaper, 
with  others  of  the  leaders,  had  sought  him  out  in  London 
in  consequence  of  what  he  had  written  in  '  Chartism ' 
about  Irish  misgovernment.  He  had  promised  to  go 
over,  when  he  had  leisure,  and  see  what  they  were  doing. 
Had  he  confined  himself  to  this  programme,  he  would 
have  given  time  for  the  waves  to  go  down ;  but  he  went 
for  a  day  or  two  to  see  his  wife  at  Seaforth  on  his  way  to 
Scotland.  It  then  appeared  that  he  had  engaged  to  meet 
the  Barings  after  all,  and  that  Mrs.  Carlyle  herself  was 
pressed  to  join  their  party.  His  letters  after  he  reached 
Scotsbrig  show  that  the  barometer  was  still  at  '  stormy.' 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Seaforth. 

Scotsbrig :  August  8,  1846. 
My  poor  old  mother  met  me  once  again  on  the  Close  here,  with 
a  moist  radiance  of  joy  in  her  old  eyes  :  once  again — not  many 
times  more — perhaps  never  once  more  :  and  then  it  is  all  done, 


Gloriana.  333 

and  that  part  of  the  universal  destiny  is  for  me  also  complete.  It 
is  not  a  merry  place  this  world  —it  is  a  stem  and  awful  place.  Soon 
after  my  arrival,  I  flung  myself  upon  a  bed  and  fell  fast  asleep.  I 
am  very  unwell,  so  far  as  biliary  and  other  confusions  go.  Yes- 
terday I  did  not  sleej)  long,  and  to-day  I  awoke  at  four  o'clock. 
Deep  silence  and  some  friendly  i)illow,  watched  by  some  rictorious 
loving  one,  to  lay  my  head  on,  that  was  the  thing  for  me,  and  that 
is  not  to  be  had  here.  The  loving  ones  here  are  all  Mwvictorious 
too.  I  do  not  remember  a  more  miserable  set  of  hours  for  most 
part  than  those  since  I  left  you.  But  we  will  hope  for  a  good 
issue  out  of  them  too— nay,  believe  in  it,  and  manfully  strive  with 
our  best  strength  for  it.  That  will  do  something.  That  will  do 
instead  of  all.  Oh,  my  dearest,  how  little  I  can  make  thee  know 
of  me !  In  what  a  black  baleful  cloud  for  myself  and  thee  are 
all  our  affairs  involved  to  thy  eyes,  at  this  moment  threatening 
shipwreck  if  we  do  not  mind  ! 

There  will  clearly  be  no  continuing  for  me  here  beyond  a  very 
few  days.  Jack  has  adjusted  himself  into  the  direction  of  all  the 
mechanism  of  this  house,  and  there  is  not  room  for  both  of  us  at 
all.  I  cannot  hope  for  more  than  to  get  along  without  offence  till 
I  do  the  indispensably  necessaiy,  and  then  fly  elsewhither  to  look 
for  shelter ;  back  to  Chelsea,  I  sometimes  think.  But,  indeed, 
to-day  I  am  below  par  in  my  dispiritment,  as  of  a  hanged  man — 
one  of  the  '  weal  wight  men  '  that  sing  after  they  are  hanged.  Cour- 
age, courage  !  I  say,  we  will  not  surrender  to  the  Devil  yet — we 
will  defy  him  yet,  and  do  the  best  we  can  to  set  our  foot  on  the 
throat  of  him  yet.     .     . 

My  mother  entei*s  with  a  message  of  kind  remembrances  to  you 
— emphatic  earnest  message,  evidently  far  sincerer  than  such  almost 
ever  are.  Poor  old  woman  !  she  said  yesterday,  '  Does  Jane  never 
mean  to  see  us  again,  then,  at  all  ? '  To-day  she  repeats  in  other 
form  the  same  sad  thought,  as  sad,  and  kind,  and  tnily  affection- 
ate, I  do  believe,  as  dwells  in  any  heai-t  but  my  own  for  you  at 
present.  .  .  You  will  toll  me  about  Haddington '  when  your 
resolution  on  it  is  once  clear.  I  shall  be  ready  at  the  end  of  next 
week  —  sooner,  if  the  Barings,  warned  by  these  thunders  and 
i-ains,  decide  on  not  coming.  How  incredible  is  it  to  my  poor 
little  Jeannie,  and  yet  how  certain  in  fact,  that  an  intimation  to 
that  effect  would  be  among  the  gladdest  I  could  get  in  a  small  way 
duiing  these  days  !     I  will  write  to  the  lady  to-morrow  that  I  am 

» They  were  to  have  gone  to  Haddington  together. 


334  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

here  according  to  engagement,  but  of  invitation  to  her  I  cannot 
have  much.  This  too,  by  God's  blessing,  what  of  integrity  and 
propriety  there  was  in  all  this  will  one  day  become  clear  to  all 
parties.  Oh,  to  think  that  my  affection  for  thee  / — but  I  will  not 
speak  on  that  thing  at  present.  Adieu,  my  own  Jane,  whom  noth- 
ing can  divide  from  me.     God  bless  thee  ever  !  T.  Carlyle. 

For  several  days  no   answer  at  all  came  from  Mrs. 
Carlyle,  and  lie  grew  impatient. 

What  am  I  to  make  (he  asked)  of  this  continued  silence  ?  It 
surely  is  not  fair.  Write  to  me  as  b]"iefly  as  you  like — but  write. 
There  can  be  no  propriety  in  punishing  me  by  such  feelings  as  these 
are.  It  is  like  seething  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk.  If  I  cared  less 
about  you,  the  punishment  would  be  less.  It  is  not  fair  nor  right. 
What  thoughts  I  have  day  and  night  I  will  not  state  at  all  till 
there  come  some  means  of  getting  belief  to  my  words  again.  Oh, 
if  you  could  look  into  my  heart  of  hearts,  I  do  not  think  you 
could  be  angry  with  me,  or  sorry  for  yourself  either  !  May  good 
angels  instead  of  bad  again  visit  you  !  May ,/  soon  meet  you 
again,  for  I  still  think  I  can  be  your  good  angel  if  you  will  not 
too  much  obstruct  me. 

On  the  point  of  starting  on  August  14  to  join  his  friends 
at  Carlisle,  lie  wrote  again  : — 

No  word  from  you  yet ;  not  the  scrape  of  a  pen  this  morning 
either.  It  is  not  right,  my  poor  dear  Jeannie  !  it  is  not  just  nor  ac- 
cording to  fact ;  and  it  deeply  distresses  and  disturbs  me  who  had 
no  need  of  disturbance  or  distress  otherwise,  if  all  were  well  known 
to  thee.  But  it  is  best  that  I  suffer  it  with  little  commentary.  To 
thee,  also,  I  will  believe  it  is  no  luxury.  I  said  to  myself  last 
night,  while  tossing  and  tumbling  amid  thousandfold  annoyances, 
outward  and  inward,  '  It  is  not  fair  all  this — really  it  is  not  fair.' 
I  wanted  to  do  none  any  injury.  My  one  wish  and  aim  was  to 
pass  among  them  without  hurting  any,  doing  good  to  some  if  I 
could.  My  own  lot  has  been  but  emptiness,  and  they  all  cry  : 
'  See,  thou  hast  taken  something  of  mine  ! '  The  jackass  brayed, 
or  the  horse  neighed,  or  some  of  the  children  coughed,  and  roused 
me  from  these  unprofitable  reflections.  Silence  is  better  than  most 
speech  in  the  case.  This,  however,  I  will  say  and  repeat :  *  The 
annals  of  insanity  contain  nothing  madder  than  "jealousy"  di- 
rected against  such  a  journey  as  I  have  before  me  to-day.'     Be- 


Glariatia. 

lieved  or  not,  that  is  verily  a  fact.  To  the  deepest  bottom  of  my 
heart  that  I  can  soimd,  I  find  far  other  feelings,  far  other  humours 
and  thoughts  at  present  than  belong  to  *  jealousy '  on  your  part. 
Alas  !  alas !  I  must,  on  the  whole,  allow  the  infernal  deities  to  go 
their  full  swing :  but  madness  sliall  not  conquer,  if  all  my  saints 
can  hinder  it.  Oh,  my  Jeannie  I  my  own  tme  Jeannie  !  bravest 
little  life-companion,  hitherto,  into  what  courses  are  we  tending  ? 
God  assist  us  both,  and  keep  us  free  of  frightful  Niagaras  and 
temptations  of  Satan.  I  am,  indeed,  very  miserable.  My  mother 
asks :  *  No  word  from  Jane  yet  ?  '  And,  in  spite  of  her  astonish- 
ment, I  am  obliged  to  answer :   *  None.^ 

It  is  ludicrous  to  contrast  with  all  tliis  tempest  the  fate 
of  the  expedition  which  was  the  occasion  of  it.  The  pro- 
jected tour  with  Mr.  Baring  and  Lady  Harriet  lasted  but 
five  days,  and  was  as  melancholy  as  Mrs.  Carljle  could 
have  desired.  They  went  from  Carlisle  to  Moffat,  sleep- 
ing '  in  noisy  cabins,  in  confused  whiskey  inns,'  and  in  the 
worst  of  weather.  The  lady  was  cross ;  Mr.  Baring  only 
patient  and  good-humoured.  They  had  designed  a  visit  to 
Drumlanrig :  but  '  the  Buccleuch  household  gave  notice 
that  they  had  the  hooping-cough,'  and  were  not  to  be  ap- 
proached ;  and  Beattock,  near  Moffat,  was  the  furthest 
point  of  the  journey. 

Beattock  (Carlyle  reported)  was  very  bad.  In  blinks  of  fair 
weather  we  did  tolerably  well ;  but  they  were  rare.  During  rain 
we  had  to  sit  in  a  little  room  where  neither  fire  in  the  grate  nor 
the  smallest  chink  of  ventilation  otherwise  could  be  permitted. 
One  grew  half  distracted,  naturally,  in  such  an  element,  and 
prayed  for  fair  weather  as  the  altera ative  of  suicide.  The  brave 
Baring's  cheerfulness  and  calmness  never  failed  him  for  a  moment. 

They  had  one  fine  day,  which  was  given  to  Moffat  and 
the  neighbourhood,  and  then  parted,  the  Barings  to  go  on 
to  the  Highlands,  Carlyle  to  reatreat  to  Scotsbrig  again — 
*  to  sleep,  and  practical  sense,  and  the  free  use  of  tobacco,' 
and  to  prepare  for  his  trip  to  Ireland.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was 
in  no  spirits  for  Haddington,  and  returned  alone  to  lier 
own  resting-place  in  Cheyne  liow,  after  a  day  or  two  with 


336  Carlyys  Life  in  London. 

Miss  Jewsbiiry  at  Manchester.  So  the  '  weighty  matter,' 
which  had  called  up  snch  a  storm,  was  over,  and  the  gale 
had  blown  itself  out.  She,  like  a  sensible  woman,  crushed 
down  her  own  dissatisfaction.  The  intimacy  was  to  go  on 
upon  .whatever  terms  Carlyle  pleased,  and  she  resigned 
herself  to  take  a  part  in  it,  since  there  was  no  reasonable 
cause  to  be  alleged  for  cessation  or  interruption.  But  the 
wound  fretted  inwardly  and  would  not  heal.  .  She  and  her 
husband  had  quarrelled  often  enough  before — they  had 
quarrelled  and  made  it  up  again,  for  they  had  both  hot 
tempers  and  sharp  tongues — but  there  had  been  at  bottom 
a  genuine  and  hearty  confidence  in  each  other,  a  strong 
sincere  affection,  resting  on  mutual  respect  and  mutual  ad- 
miration. The  feeling  remained  essentiall}^  unbroken,  but 
the  fine  edge  of  it  had  suffered.  Small  occasions  of  provo- 
cation constantly  recurred.  Mrs.  Carlyle  consented  to  stay 
with  Lady  Harriet  and  submit  to  her  authority  as  often 
and  as  much  as  she  required  ;  the  sense  of  duty  acting  as 
perpetual  curb  to  her  impatience.  But  the  wound  burst 
out  at  intervals,  embittering  Carlyle's  life,  and  saddening 
a  disposition  w^hich  did  not  need  further  clouds  upon  it. 
She  wrote  to  him  while  he  was  at  Scotsbris;  about  indif- 
ferent  things  in  the  spirit  of  the  resolution  which  she  had 
made,  and  he,  man-like,  believed  that  all  was  well  again. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  August  26,  1846. 
My  dear  Goody, — I  had  thy  letter  yesterday,  at  last.  Many 
thanks  for  it,  and  do  not  keep  me  waiting  so  long  again.  No  news 
could  be  welcomer  than  that  you  have  been  recreating  and  im- 
proving your  mind  by  assiduous  inspection  of  the  works  and  ways 
of  Manchester — most  welcome  unexpected  news.  The  black  spider- 
webs  that  take  possession  of  one's  fancy,  making  one  poor  little 
heart  and  soul  all  one  Golgotha  and  Egyptian  darkness,  are  best 
of  all  to  be  sent  about  their  business — home  to  the  Devil,  whose 
they  are — by  opening  one's  eyes  to  the  concrete  fact  of  human  life 
in  some  such  way  as  that.     Oh,  my  Goody !  my  own  dear  little 


Gloriana.  337 

Jeannie !  But  we  will  hope  all  that  black  business  has  now  got 
safe  into  the  past,  and  will  not  tear  np  our  poor  forlorn  existence 
in  so  sad  a  way  again.  God  be  thanked  you  are  better  ;  and  now 
tell  me  that  you  eat  a  little  food  at  breakfast  as  well  as  dinner,  and 
I  will  compose  myself  till  we  meet. 

Total  idleness  still  rules  over  me  here.  The  brightest  stil 
autumn  weather,  blue  skies,  windless,  with  Noah's  ark  clouds  hung 
over  them,  plenty  of  good  tobacco,  worthless  Yankee  literature, 
and  many  ruminations  6n  the  moor  or  Linn — that  is  all ;  the  voice 
of  the  Devil's  caldron  singing  me  into  really  a  kind  of  waking 
sleep.  In  spite  of  cocks,  children,  bulls,  cuddies,  and  various  in- 
terruptions at  night,  I  victoriously  snatch  some  modicum  of  real 
sleep  for  most  part,  and  could  certainly  improve  in  health  were  a 
continuance  of  such  scenes  of  quiet  permitted  me.  But  it  is  not. 
I  must  soon  lift  anchor  again  and  go.  .  .  .  Jenny  and  my 
mother  are  this  day  washing  with  all  their  might,  cleaning  up  my 
soiled  duds  for  me. 

August,  29. 

I  lie  totally  inert  here,  like  a  dead  dry  bone  bleaching  in  the 
silent  sunshine  ;  often  enough,  my  feeling  of  loneliness,  of  utter 
isolation  in  this  universe,  is  great.  Useful,  I  dare  say.  One  re- 
quires, occasionally,  to  be  somewhat  severely  taught.  Abdallah, 
the  Vizier,  used  to  retire  at  intervals  and  contemplate  the  wooden 
clogs  he  had  first  started  with,  and  found  it  do  him  good  amid  his 
vanities.  Probably  there  may  He  a  little  more  woik  in  me  :  nay,  I 
think  there  will  and  shall.  Complaint  is  not  the  dialect  one 
should  speak  in.  Courage  !  .  .  .  I  sliall  like  better  to  fancy  you 
in  Chelsea,  earthquaking  and  putting  all  in  order,  than  tossing 
and  tumbling  as  you  now  are.  Home,  therefore,  is  the  word,  and 
remember  one  thing,  to  write  a  little  oftener  to  mo,  and  as  near 
the  old  tone  as  you  can  come  to,  before  the  spider-webs  got  upo!i 
the  loom  at  all.  In  me  is  no  change,  nor  was,  nor  is  like  to  be. 
Alas  !  I  do  not  much  deserve  to  be  loved  by  anybody — not  much, 
or  at  all ;  but  I  am  very  grateful  if  anybody  will  take  the  trouble 
to  do  it.  God  guide  us  all,  for  our  pathway  is  sometimes  intricate, 
and  our  own  insight  is  now  and  then  very  bad.  But  there  will 
come  a  day  when  all  that  will  be  intelligible  again.  I  should  ba 
miserable  if  I  thought  there  would  not.  Again,  courage  I 
Vol.  IU— 22 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A.D.  1846-7.    MT.  51-52. 

Six  days  in  Ireland — John  Mitchel — Eeturn  to  London — Margaret 
Fuller — Visit  to  the  Grange — Irish  famine — Dr.  Chalmers — 
Literature  as  a  profession — Matlock — Sight  near  Buxton — 
Visit  to  Rochdale — John  and  Jacob  Bright — Emerson  comes 
from  America — The  *  Jew  Bill ' — Hare's  Life  of  Sterling — 
Plans  for  future  books — Exodus  from  Houndsditch. 

Ireland  had  long  been  an  anxious  subject  of  Carlyle's 
meditations.  It  was  tlie  weak  point  of  English  constitu- 
tional government.  The  Constitution  was  the  natural 
growth  of  the  English  mind  and  character.  We  had  im- 
posed it  upon  the  Irish  in  the  confident  belief  that  a 
system  w4iich  answered  among  ourselves  must  be  excellent 
in  itself,  and  be  equally  suited  for  every  other  country 
and  people.  Carlyle's  conviction  was  that  even  for  Eng- 
land it  was  something  temporary  in  itself,  an  historical 
phenomenon  which  in  time  would  cease  to  answer  its  pur- 
pose even  where  it  originated,  and  that  Ireland  was  the 
weak  spot,  where  the  faihire  was  first  becoming  evident. 
He  had  wished  to  see  the  unfortunate  island  with  his  own 
eyes',  now  particularly  when  its  normal  wretchedness  was 
accentuated  by  the  potato  blight  and  famine.  He  had  no 
present  leisure  for  a  detailed  survey,  but  he  had  resolved 
at  least  to  look  at  it  if  only  for  a  few  days. 

On  the  last  of  August  he  left  Scotsbrig,  went  to  Dum- 
fries, and  thence  made  a  hasty  visit  to  Craigenputtock, 
which  was  now  his  own  property,  and  where  there  was 


Vhit  to  Ireland.  339 

business  to  be  attended  to.  From  Dumfries  lie  went  by 
coach  to  Ayr  and  Ardrossan,  from  whicli  a  steamer  carried 
him  at  night  to  Belfast.  Gavan  Duify  and  John  Mitchel 
had  arranged  to  meet  him  at  Drogheda.  The  drive 
thither  from  Belfast  was  full  of  instruction  ;  the  scene  all 
iiew  to  him  ;  the  story  of  the  country  written  in  Jiiined 
cabins  and  uncultivated  fields,  the  air  poisoned  with  the 
fatal  smell  of  the  poisoned  potato.  He  had  an  agi-eeable 
companion  on  tho*  coach  in  a  clever  young  Dublin  man, 
■who  pleased  him  well.  Drogheda  must  have  had  impres- 
sive associations  for  him.  There  is  no  finer  passage  in  his 
'  Cromwell '  than  his  description  of  the  stern  business 
once  enacted  there.  But  he  did  not  stay  to  look  for  traces 
of  Oliver.  He  missed  his  two  friends  through  a  mistake 
at  the  Post  Office,  and  hurried  on  by  railway  to  Dublin, 
where  he  stopped  at  the  Impei'ial  Hotel  in  Sackville 
Street.  Here  for  a  day  or  two  he  was  alone.  He  had 
come  for  a  glance  at  Ireland,  and  that  was  all  whicli  he  got. 
He  witnessed,  however,  a  remarkable  scene,  the  last  ap- 
pearance of  O'Connell,  then  released  from  prison,  in  Con- 
ciliation Hall.     He  says,  long  after: — 

I  saw  Conciliation  Hall  and  the  last  glimpse  of  O'Connell,  chief 
quack  of  the  then  world ;  first  time  I  had  ever  heard  the  lying 
scoundrel  speak — a  most  melancholy  scene  to  me  altogether  ;  Con- 
ciliation Hall  something  like  a  decent  Methodist  Chapel,  but  its 
audience  very  sparse,  very  bad  and  blackguard-looking;  brazen 
faces  like  tapsters,  tavern-keepers,  miscellaneous  hucksters,  and 
quarrelsome  male  or  female  nondescripts  the  prevailing  type  ;  not 
one  tliat  you  would  have  called  a  gentleman,  much  less  a  man  of 
culture  ;  and  discontent  visible  among  them.  The  speech,  on 
potato  rot,  most  serious  of  topics,  had  not  one  word  of  sincerity, 
not  to  speak  of  wisdom,  in  it.  Every  sentence  seemed  to  you  a 
lie,  and  even  to  know  that  it  was  a  detected  lie.  I  was  standing 
in  the  area  in  a  small  group  of  non-members  and  transitoiy  peo- 
ple, quite  near  this  Demosthenes  of  blarney,  when  a  low  voice 
whispered  in  high  accent,  '  Did  you  ever  hear  such  damned  non- 
sense in  all  your  life  ?  *    It  was  my  Belf ast-Drogheda  coach  com- 


340  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

m 

panion,  and  I  thoroughly  agreed  with  him.  Beggarly  O'Connell 
made  out  of  Ireland  straightway  and  never  returned — crept  under 
the  Pope's  petticoat  to  die  (and  be  '  saved '  from  what  he  had 
merited),  the  eminently  despicable  and  eminently  poisonous  pro- 
fessor of  blarney  that  he  was. 

The  Young  Irelanders  had  waited  at  Drogheda,  and  only 
discovered  their  guest  at  last  at  Dundrum,  to  wliicli  he 
had  gone  to  some  address  which  Mr.  Duffy  had  given  liim. 
There  he  was  entertained  at  a  large  dinner-pai'tj.  '  Young 
Ireland  almost  in  mass.'  The  novelist  Oarleton  was  there, 
'  a  genuine  bit  of  old  Ireland.'  ^  They  talked  and  drank 
liquids  of  various  strengths.'  Carlyle  was  scoi-nful.  The 
Young  Irelanders  fought  fiercely  with  him  for  their  own 
views ;  but  they  liked  liim  and  he  liked  them,  wild  and 
unhopeful  as  lie  knew  their  projects  to  be.  He  could  not 
see  even  the  surface  of  Ireland  without  recognising  that 
there  was  a  curse  upon  it  of  some  kind,  and  these  young 
enthusiasts  were  at  least  conscious  of  the  fact,  and  were 
not  crying  '  Peace '  when  there  was  none.  The  next  day  he 
dined  with  one  of  them  ;  then,  perhaps,  the  most  notorious. 

Dined  at  Mitchel's  (he  writes)  with  a  select  party,  and  ate  there 
the  last  truly  good  potato  I  have  met  with  in  the  world.  Mitchel's 
wife,  especially  his  mother  (Presbyterian  parson's  widow  of  the 
best  Scotch  type),  his  frugally  elegant  small  house  and  table, 
pleased  me  much,  as  did  the  man  himself,  a  fine  elastic-spirited 
young  fellow,  whom  I  grieved  to  see  rushing  on  to  destruction, 
palpable,  by  attack  of  windmills,  but  on  whom  all  my  persuasions 
were  thrown  away.  Both  Duflfy  and  him  I  have  always  regarded 
as  specimens  of  the  best  kind  of  Irish  youth,  seduced,  like  thou- 
sands of  them  in  their  early  day,  into  courses  that  were  at  once 
mad  and  ridiculous,  and  which  nearly  ruined  the  life  of  both,  by 
the  big  Beggarman  who  had  15,000/.  a  year,  and,  prok  pudor  f  the 
favour  of  English  Ministers,  instead  of  the  pillory  from  them,  for 
professing  blarney  with  such  and  still  worse  results. 

*  Poor  Mitchel ! '  (Carlyle  said  afterwards)  '  I  told  him 
he  would  most  likely  be  hanged,  but  I  told  him  too  they 
could  not  hang  the  immortal  part  of  him.' 


Beturn  to  Liverpool.  341 

On  the  last  day  of  his  stay  he  was  taken  for  a  drive,  one 

of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world,  by  tiie  Dargle  and 
Powerscourt,  and  round  through  the  Glen  of  the  Downs 
to  Bray.  Before  entering  the  Dublin  mountains,  they 
crossed  the  low  i-ich  meadov/s  of  the  old  Pale,  the  longest 
in  English  occupation,  a  fertile  oasis  in  the  general  wretch- 
edness. I  have  heard  that  he  said,  looking  over  the  thick 
green  grass  and  well-trimmed  fences  and  the  herds  of  cat- 
tle fattening  there,  '  Ah,  Duff}^  there  you  see  the  hoof  of 
the  bloody  Saxon.'  This  was  his  final  excursion,  a  pleas- 
ant taste  in  the  mouth  to  end  with.  The  same  evening 
his  friends  saw  him  on  board  the  steamer  at  Kingstown  ; 
and  in  the  early  morning  of  September  10  he  was  sitting 
smoking  a  cigar  before  the  door  of  his  wife's  uncle's 
house  hi  Liverpool  till  the  household  should  awake  and  let 
him  in. 

He  had  looked  on  Ireland,  and  that  was  all ;  but  he  had 
seen  enough  to  make  intelligible  to  him  all  that  followed. 
When  he  came  again,  three  years  later,  the  bubble  had 
burst.  Europe  was  in  revolution ;  the  dry  Irish  tinder 
had  kindled,  and  a  rebellion  w^hich  was  a  blaze  of  straw 
had  ended  in  a  cabbage  garden.  Duffy,  Mitchel,  and 
others  of  that  bright  Dundrum  party  had  stood  at  the  bar 
to  be  tried  for  treason.  Duffy  narrowly  escaped.  The 
rest  were  exiled,  scattered  over  the  world,  and  lost  to  Ire- 
land for  ever.  Mitchel  has  lately  died  in  America.  The 
'  immortal  part '  of  him  still  works  in  the  Phenix  Park 
and  in  dynamite  conspiracies;  what  will  come  of  it  has 
yet  to  be  seen. 

To  the  family  at  Scotsbrig  Ireland  had  been  a  word  of 
terror,  and  Carlyle  hastened  to  assure  them  of  his  safe  re- 
turn. 

Tell  my  dear  mother  (he  WTote  to  his  brother  John)  that  the 
Papists  have  not  hurt  me  in  the  least ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were 
abundantly  and  over-abundantly  kind  and  hospitable  to  me,  and 


342  •  CarlyU's  Life  in  London. 

many  a  rough  object  has  been  put  in  my  head  which  may  usefully 
smooth  itself  for  me  some  day. 

In  London,  when  he  was  again  settled  there,  he  had 
notliing  of  importance  to  attend  to.  No  fresh  w^ork  had 
risen  npon  him.  There  had  been  trouble  with  servants, 
&c.  The  establishment  at  Cheyne  Row  consisted  of  a 
single  maid-of-all-work,  and  to  find  a  woman  who  would 
take  such  a  place,  and  yet  satisfy  a  master  and  mistress  so 
sensitive  to  disorder,  material  or  moral,  was  no  easy  mat- 
ter. Mrs.  Carlyle  has  related  her  afflictions  on  this  score ; 
just  then  they  had  been  particularly  severe,  and  she  had 
been  worried  into  illness.  The  'fame'  from  '  Cromwell' 
had  made  Carlyle  himself  a  greater  object  of  curiosity  than 
ever.     He  did  not  like  being  an  object  of  curiosity. 

October  8,  1846. 
Yesternight  (he  says)  there  came  a  bevy  of  Americans  from 
Emerson,  one  Margaret  Fuller,  the  chief  figure  of  them,  a  strange 
lilting  lean  old  maid,  not  nearly  such  a  bore  as  I  expected.  Miss 
Martineau  was  here  and  is  gone — to  Norwich,  after  which  to  Egypt 
— broken  into  utter  wearisomeness,  a  mind  reduced  to  these  three 
elements  :  Imbecility,  Dogmatism,  and  Unlimited  Hope.  I  never 
in  my  life  was  more  heartily  bored  with  any  creature. 

Margaret  Fuller,  then  on  her  way  to  Italy  to  be  married 
to  a  Count  Ossoli  there,  and  to  be  afterwards  tragically 
drowned,  has  left  an  account  of  this  meeting  with  Carlyle, 
and  being  an  external  view  of  him  and  by  a  clever  woman 
it  deserves  a  place  here.  Her  first  evening  at  Cheyiu 
Row,  she  says,  '  delighted  '  her.  Carlyle  '  was  in  a  very 
sweet  humour,  full  of  wit  and  pathos,  without  being  over- 
bearing and  oppressive.'  She  was  '  carried  away  with  the 
rich  flow  of  his  discourse ;  and  the  hearty  noble  earnest- 
ness of  his  personal  being  brought  back  the  charm  which 
was  once  upon  his  writing  before  she  wearied  of  it.'  She 
admired  his  Scotch  dialect,  'his  way  of  singing  his  great 
full  sentences  so  that  each  one  was  like  the  stanza  of  a 


Margaret  Fuller,  343 

narrative  ballad.'  *He  talked  of  the  present  state  of 
things  in  England,  giving  light  witty  sketches  of  the  men 
of  the  day  ;  and  some  sweet  homely  stories  he  told  of 
things  he  had  known  among  the  Scotch  peasantry.  .  .  . 
There  was  never  anything  so  w^tty  as  his  description  of 

.     It  was  enough  to  kill  one  with  laughing.'    '  Nor 

was  he  ashamed  to  laugh  himself  when  he  was  amused  ; ' 
'  he  went  on  in  a  cordial  human  fashion.' 

On  a  second  visit  the  humour  was  less  sweet,  though 
*  more  brilliant,'  and  Miss  Fuller  was  obliged  to  disagree 
with  everything  that  he  said. 

The  worst  of  hearing  Carljle  (she  savs,  and  she  is  very  correct 
in  this)  is  that  you  cannot  interrupt  him.  I  understand  the  habit 
and  power  of  haranguing  have  increased  veiy  much  upon  him,  so 
that  you  are  a  perfect  prisoner  when  he  has  once  got  hold  of  you. 
To  internipt  him  is  a  physical  impossibility.  If  you  get  a  chance 
to  remonstrate  for  a  moment,  he  raises  his  voice  and  bears  you 
down.  True  he  does  you  no  injustice,  and  with  his  admirable 
penetration  sees  the  disclaimer  in  your  mind,  so  that  you  are  not 
morally  delinquent ;  but  it  is  not  pleasant  to  be  unable  to  utter  it. 

This  was  not  the  last  meeting,  for  the  Carlyles  in  turn 
spent  an  evening  with  their  new  American  acquaintances. 
Mazzini  was  there,  w4iom  Miss  Fuller  admired  especially, 
and  had  perceived  also  to  be  '  a  dear  friend  of  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle.'  'Mazzini's  presence,'  she  writes,  'turned  the  con- 
versation to  Progress  and  ideal  subjects,  and  Carlyle  was 
fluent  in  invectives  on  "  rosewater  imbecilities."  Mazzini. 
after  some  eflForts  to  remonstrate,  became  very  sad.'  Mrs. 
Carlyle  said  to  Miss  Fuller :  '  These  are  but  opinions  to 
Carlyle  ;  but  to  Mazzini,  who  has  given  his  all,  and  helped 
to  bring  his  friends  to  the  scaffold  in  pursuit  of  such  ob- 
jects, it  is  matter  of  life  and  death.' 

All  Carlyle's  talk  that  evening  (she  goes  on)  was  a  defence  of 
mere  force,  success  the  test  of  right.  If  people  would  not  behave 
well,  put  collars  round  their  necks.  Find  a  hero,  and  let  them  be 
his  slaves.     It  was  veiy  Titanic  and  Anticelestial.    I  wish  the  last 


344:  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

evening  had  been  more  melodious.  However,  I  bade  Carlyle  fare- 
well with  feelings  of  the  warmest  friendship  and  admiration.  We 
cannot  feel  otherwise  to  a  great  and  noble  nature,  whether  it  har- 
monise with  one's  own  or  not.  I  never  appreciated  the  work  he 
has  done  for  his  age  till  I  saw  England — I  could  not.  You  must 
stand  in  the  shadow  of  that  mountain  of  Shams  to  know  how  hard 
it  is  to  cast  light  across  it. 

Cheyiie  Row  being  made  •ancomfortable  by  change  of 
servants,  an  invitation  to  Carljle  and  his  wife  to  stay  at 
the  Grange  was  accepted  without  objection  on  either  side. 
Objections  on  that  score  were  not  to  be  raised  any  more. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  liked  old  Lord  and  Lady  Aslibnrton  well, 
and  the  Grange  was  one  of  the  pleasantest  houses  in  Eng- 
land. But  it  proved  to  be  one  of  the  great  autumn 
gatherings  wdiich  were  a  mere  reproduction  of  London  so- 
ciety. The  visit  lasted  a  fortnight,  and  gave  little  pleas- 
ure to  either  of  them.  The  men  were  shooting  all  day  ; 
the  women  dispersed  to  their  rooms  in  the  forenoon,  met 
at  luncheon,  strolled  or  rode  in  the  afternoon ;  none  of 
them  did  anything,  and  Carlyle  was  a  fish  out  of  water. 
He  says : — 

It  was  a  strange  nightmare  of  smoke  and  flame,  indigestion  and 
Do-nothingism,  which  I  was  very  willing  to  see  end.  We  had 
many  people  there,  nearly  all  insignificant  except  by  their  man- 
ners and  rank.  Old  Rogers  stayed  the  longest,  indeed  as  long  as 
ourselves.  I  do  not  remember  any  old  man  (he  is  now  eighty- 
three)  whose  manner  of  living  gave  me  less  satisfaction.  A  most 
sorrowful,  distressing,  distracted  old  phenomenon,  hovering  over 
the  rim  of  deep  eternities  with  nothing  but  light  babble,  fatuity, 
vanity,  and  the  frostiest  London  wit  in  his  mouth.  Sometimes  I 
felt  as  if  I  could  throttle  him,  the  poor  old  wretch  !  but  then  sud- 
denly I  reflected  '  it  is  but  for  two  days  more.'  Pity  the  sorrows 
of  a  poor  old  man  !  Lady  Harriet  lived  mostly  in  her  own  apart- 
ments, dined  at  another  hour  than  we,  and,  except  at  breakfast  and 
tea,  did  not  much  appear. 

The  Grange  was  Lord  Ashburton's,  his  son,  Mr.  Bar- 
ing, and  Lady  Harriet  living  (as  has  been  seen),  when  not 


The  Grange.  M5 

in  London  or  Addiscombe,  at  Bay  House,  near  Alverstoke. 
Mrs.  Carlyle,  after  the  Grange  visit,  became  very  ill,  con- 
fined to  bed  for  three  weeks  with  cough  and  incessant 
headache.  The  new  servant  did  not  understand  her  busi- 
ness. Carlyle  himself  was  '  totally  idle,  trying  merely  to 
read  books,  and  the  books  a  disgust  to  him.'  Lady  Har- 
riet, when  Mrs.  Carlyle  became  able  to  move,  proposed 
that  she  and  her  husband  should  spend  a  month  with  her 
at  Bay  House  for  change  of  air.  Mr.  Baring  had  many 
engagements,  and  for  part  of  the  time  she  would  be 
alone.  Carlyle,  writing  to  his  brother  about  it,  said  *  that 
he  did  not  regard  this  scheme  as  quite  unquestionable,  and 
80  liad  rather  held  back,  but  Jane  having  engaged  for  it 
would  go  through  with  the  affair.'  Lady  Harriet  was 
most  attentive ;  she  secured  them  a  separate  compartment 
on  the  railway.  Her  carriage  was  waiting  at  the  station 
with  rugs,  wrappings,  and  hot-water  bottles.  They  went 
in  tlie  middle  of  January.     On  the  2Sth  Carlyle  wTOte : — 

We  have  terribly  windy  weather  here,  otherwise  genial  and  of 
mild  temperatiu'e.  We  are  doing  veiy  tolerably  well.  In  the  end 
of  last  week  Jane  took  sore  throat,  and  for  three  days  she  had  a 
very  bad  time  of  it ;  but  now  the  disorder  is  quite  gone,  and  she 
18  visibly  better  than  before  for  a  long  time  past.  I  myself  do 
little  reading,  little  of  anything,  rove  about  in  silence  among  the 
whins  and  shingle  beaches  here,  and  I  suppose  shall  get  profit  in 
the  long  run. 

February  brought  other  visitors,  Buller,  Milnes,  &c. 
Lady  Anne  Charteris,  who  lived  near  Bay  House,  came 
often  to  sit  with  Mrs.  Carlyle  and  play  chess  with  her. 
On  the  15th,  when  the  month  was  near  out,  he  could  send 
a  good  account  to  his  mother. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Bay  House  :  Feb.  15, 1847. 
Jane  has  greatly  improved  in  health  ;  indeed  she  is  now  about 
as  well  as  usual,  and  wo  hope  may  now  do  well  henceforth.     I 
myself  expect  if  we  were  home  again  to  feel  somewhat  better. 


346  Cadyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Certainly  I  ought  to  be  so :  for  I  have  gone  bone  idle  these  four 
weeks  and  more,  and  have  been  well  done  to  every  way.  But  the 
great  tumult  of  servants  and  equipments  here  considerably  con- 
fuses me  always  while  it  lasts.  ...  I  have  passed  great  part 
of  my  time  alcnie,  wandering  in  silence  by  the  shore  of  the  sea,  or 
among  the  shallow  lanes  up  and  down,  which  is  not  an  unprofit- 
able thing  either  in  its  course.  The  memory  of  many  things  which 
it  were  not  good  at  all  to  forget  rises  with  strange  clearness  on  me 
in  these  solitudes,  very  touching,  very  sad,  out  of  the  depths  of 
the  old  dead  years.  Oh  !  my  dear  old  mother,  what  a  stupendous 
thing  is  this  human  life,  that  we  live  in  many  cases  as  if  it  were  of 
no  consequence  !  "When  I  think  of  those  old  dear  ones  that  are 
with  God,  and  how  we  shall  all  soon  be  there  ourselves,  I  have  no 
word  to  say.^ 

Ireland  weighed  heavily  on  his  thonglits.  Each  post 
brought  news  this  spring  of  a  land  stricken  with  death. 
He  had  seen  the  place,  and  could  realise  what  was  passing 
there.  Tens  of  thousands  were  perishing,  and  the  wretched 
people,  having  lost  their  potatoes,  were  refusing  even  to 
plough.  'Wh}^,'  they  asked,  'should  they  raise  a  crop, 
when  the  landlords  would  come  and  take  it  all  ? '  The 
Government  would  be  obliojed  to  feed  them,  whether  tliev 
worked  or  not.  '  I^ever,'  he  cried,  '  was  there  such  a  scene 
as  Ireland.'  He  longed  to  write  something  on  it,  but  felt 
that  he  did  not  yet  see  through  the  problem.  Kay,  he 
believed  an  equal  catastrophe  lay. over  England  herself, 
if  she  did  not  mend  her  ways.  It  was  to  this  that  lie 
must  next  direct  himself,  when  he  could  determine  how ; 
but  there  was  no  longer  any  immediate  need  to  write  any- 
thing. He  would  pause  and  consider.  'Frederick'  was 
still  far  off,  nearer  subjects  were  more  pressing. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  March  8,  1847. 
In  the  way  of  putting  pen  to  paper  I  am  still  altogether  inac- 
tive, and  decline  every  offer  made  to  me  by  such  poor  hawkers  as 
call  on  me  by  chance  for  that  object ;  but  in  the  way  of  sorting 
»  The  remainder  of  this  letter  is  missing. 


Vi»U  from  Chalmers.  347 

the  abstruse  confusions  within  my  own  self  (which  I  suppose  ia 
the  first  condition  of  wiiting  to  any  puipose)  I  have  plenty  to  'do ; 
and  for  doing  it  I  find  one  good  condition  is  to  hold  your  tongue^  if 
you  can.  Happily  I  now  can.  My  poor  books  bring  me  in  a  little 
money  now  to  fill  the  me^l  barrel  eveiy  year,  and  the  wealth  of  all 
the  Bank  of  England  is  daily  a  smaller  and  smaller  object  to  me  ; 
indeed  it  is  long  since  well  near  no  object  at  all,  which  is  perhap.v; 
a  Yer\'  good  definition  of  being  extremely  rich,  the  *  richest  author 
in  Britain '  at  present.  I  think  I  shall  hold  my  tongue  for  a  pretty 
while  yet ;  and  then,  if  I  live,  there  will  another  word  perhajjs  be 
found  in  me  which  I  shall  be  obliged  to  speak — a  teriibly  hard 
job  when  it  comes.  I  read  books,  but  seldom  find  any  that  con- 
tain what  I  want.  Indeed,  one's  busiest  time  is  often  when  alto- 
gether silent  and  quiescent,  if  one  can  stand  to  that  rightly. 

In  a  postscript  to  this  letter  lie  enclosed  a  five-poimd 
note,  part  of  which  his  mother  was  to  give,  if  she  liked,  to 
*Jeiinj'  as  a  present  from  lierself,  that  his  sister  miglit 
not  feel  too  heavily  obliged  to  liim — one  of  liis  character- 
istic bits  of  fine  delicacy.  In  return  came  hams,  butter, 
&c.,  from  Scotsbrig,  unceasing  and  affectionate  exchanges. 
The  months  went  by.  The  season  brought  its  usual  dis- 
tractions, but  he  stayed  mostly  at  home. 

London  (he  wrote  on  May  21)  is  an  awful  whirl  this  month,  but 
we  try  to  have  but  little  to  do  with  it — nothing  for  most  part  but 
a  glimpse  at  it  once  a  day,  and  a  thankful  return  out  of  the  noise 
and  discord  back  to  the  river-side  here,  and  to  the  sight  of  coun- 
try fields  and  the  company  chiefly  of  books  and  one's  own  thoughts 
again.  .  .  .  We  had  a  flying  \isit  from  Jeffrey  last  week.  He 
has  been  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  other  regions  hereabouts  for 
health's  sake.  He  was  just  then  on  his  way  for  Edinburgh  again, 
looking  thin,  but  brisk  enough,  scarcely  a  little  more  serious  as  he 
grows  older,  in  fact  the  same  old  man.  We  are  always  very  happy 
with  him  for  a 'little,  but  could  not  stand  it  long,  I  think,  without 
coming  upon  innumerable  points  of  discrepancy.  A  much  moro 
interesting  visitor  than  Jeffrey  was  old  Dr.  Chalmers,  who  came 
down  to  us  also  last  week,  whom  I  had  not  seen  before  for,  I  think, 
five-and-twenty  years.  It  was  a  pathetic  meeting.  The  good  old 
man  is  grown  white-headed,  but  is  otherwise  wonderfully  little  al- 
tered—grave, deliberate,  very  gentle  in  his  deportment,  but  with 


34r8  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

plenty  too  of  soft  energy  ;  full  of  interest  still  for  all  serious  things, 
full  of  real  kindliness,  and  sensible  even  to  honest  mirth  in  a  fair 
measure.  He  sate  with  us  an  hour  and  a  half,  went  away  with  our 
blessings  and  affections.  It  is  long  since  I  have  spoken  to  so  good 
and  really  pious-hearted  and  beautiful  old  man. 

Chalmers  had  never  forgotten  Carlyle,  whom  he  liad 
seen  long  before  with  Irving  at  Glasgow.  lie  had  watched 
his  progress,  recognised  the  essential  piety  of  his  nature 
under  the  forms  of  heterodoxy,  and  in  'Cromwell'  had 
seen  a  noble  addition  to  the  worthy  kind  of  English  lit- 
erature. He  had  gone  to  Cheyne  Eow  to  express  his  feel- 
ings, and  look  once  more  on  Carlyle's  face.  Neither  he 
nor  his  host  guessed  then  how  near  he  stood  to  the  end  of 
his  pilgrimage. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea :  June  19,  1847. 
I  mentioned  to  you  that  Dr.  Chalmers  had  seen  us  here  for  an 
hour  one  day,  and  how  interesting  it  was.  We  thought  we  had 
hardly  ever  seen  a  finer-looking  old  man,  so  peaceable,  so  hopeful, 
modest,  pious.  You  have  since  heard  of  his  sudden  call  from  this 
world.  I  believe  there  is  not  in  all  Scotland,  or  all  Europe,  any 
such  Christian  priest  left.  It  will  long  be  memorable  to  us,  the 
little  visit  we  had  from  him.  x4nd  O'Connell,  too,  the  wretched 
blustering  quack,  is  dead  ;  died  with  his  mouth  full  of  supersti- 
tious nonsense,  among  other  things.  Unfortunate  old  man  !  on 
what  side  could  he  look  with  clearness  of  hope  ?  He  had  been 
lying,  as  no  good  man  ever  does  or  did,  openly  for  fifty  years, 
preaching  to  the  Irish  that  they  were  just  about  to  get  Repeal  from 
the  English  and  become  a  glorious  people — being  indeed  noble 
men  at  bottom,  though  to  all  appearance  blackguards  and  lying 
slaves — and  he  leaves  them  sinking  into  universal  wreck,  and 
nothing  but  their  connection  with  England  between  the  whole 
mass  of  them  and  black  death.  To  him  for  one  I  will  not  raise  a 
monument.  . 

With  the  hot  weather  came  a  visit  to  Addiscombe — 
visits  to  the  Barings,  at  one  place  or  another,  continually 
recurring,  in  which  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  as  often  as  possible 


Literature  as  a  Profession,  349 

included.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said,  save  that  Lady 
Harriet's  attentions  to  her  were  unremitting.  Carlyle 
himself  was  still  what  he  called  idle,  i.e.,  incessantly  read- 
ing all  kinds  of  books,  and  watching  the  signs  of  the 
times.  Of  books  freshly  coming  out  he  read,  among 
others,  Maurice's  *  Religions  of  the  World,'  on  which  he 
wrote  to  Maurice  with  warm  compliments.  Another  let- 
ter written  this  summer  is  worth  quoting  for  the  advice  it 
contains  to  young  men  wishing  to  make  literature  their 
profession.  Some  stranger  from  Manchester  had  writ- 
ten to  consult  him.  Having  time  on  his  hands,  he  sent 
this  reply : — 

Chelsea:  July,  1847. 
My  dear  Sir,— Unluckily  it  is  not  possible  to  answer  your  main 
inquiry.  The  incomes  of  literary  men  even  of  a  high  reputation 
vary,  according  as  the  men  work  for  popularity  by  itself,  or  for 
other  objects,  from  4,000/.  a  year  to  perhaps  200/.  or  lower.  Add  to 
which  that  all  such  incomes  are  uncertain,  fluctuating  on  the  wildest 
chance,  and  that  not  one  litei-aiy  man  in  the  hundred  ever  becomes 
popular  or  successful  at  all.  You  perceive  it  is  like  asking  what 
may  be  the  income  of  a  man  that  shall  decide  to  live  by  gambling. 
No  answer  to  be  given.  Reporters  to  the  daily  papers,  whose  in- 
dustry is  the  humblest  of  all  real  or  wnsei-vile  kinds  in  literature, 
receive,  as  I  have  heard,  about  200/.  a  year.  Perhaps,  all  things 
considered,  a  man  of  sense,  reduced  to  live  by  writing,  would  de-  ■ 
cide  that,  in  the  economical  respect,  these  men's  position  was 
actually  the  best.  By  quitting  reality  again,  and  taking  in  to 
some  popular  department  of  literaiy  rnpe-clanc'ing,  a  person  of  real 
toughness  and  assiduity,  not  ashamed  to  feel  himself  a  slave,  but 
able  even  to  think  himself /ree  and  a  king  in  rope-dancing  well paidy 
contrives,  with  moderate  talent  otherwise,  if  he  be  really  tough  and 
assiduous,  to  gain  sometimes  considerable  wages ;  in  other  cases 
dies  of  heartbreak,  drinking,  and  starvation.  That  really  is  his 
economic  position,  so  far  as  I  have  seen  it.  But  for  a  man  really 
intent  to  do  a  maiCs  work  in  litei*ature  in  these  times,  I  should  say 
that  even  with  the  highest  talent  he  might  have  to  be  fed  often- 
times like  Elijah,  by  the  ravens  ;  and  if  his  talent,  tliough  real,  was 
not  very  high,  ho  might  easily  see  himself  cut  off  from  wages  alto- 
gether ;  all  men  saying  to  him,  *  The  thing  you  have  to  offer  ns  is, 


350  Carlyl^s  Life  in  Lo7idon. 

in  the  supply  and  demand  market,  worth  nothing  whatever.'  Such 
a  man  as  that  latter,  if  he  could  live  at  all,  I  should  account  him 
lucky. 

This,  my  generous  young  friend,  this  is  the  sad  No  answer  I  have 
to  give  you — a  sad  but  a  true  one.  The  advice  I  ground  on  it  you 
already  discover — Not  by  any  means  to  quit  the  solid  paths  of 
practical  business  for  these  inane  froth  oceans  which,  however  gas- 
lighted  they  may  be,  are  essentially  what  I  have  called  them  some- 
where, base  as  Fleet  Ditch,  the  mother  of  dead  dogs.  Surely  it  is 
better  for  a  man  to  work  out  his  God-given  faculty  than  merely  to 
speak  it  out,  even  in  the  most  Augustan  times.  Surely  of  all  places 
in  this  planet  the  place  where  the  gods  do  most  need  a  working 
man  of  genius  is  Manchester,  a  place  sunk  in  sordid  darkness  of 
every  kind  except  the  glitter  of  gold,  and  which,  if  it  were  once 
irradiated,  might  become  one  of  the  beautifullest  things  this  sun 
has  ever  seen.  Believe  me  yours,  with  real  good  will, 

Kinder  than  it  looks, 

T.  Caelyle. 

He  was  himself  to  see  Manchester  this  summer,  and  per- 
haps his  correspondent  there.  At  the  end  of  July  he  took 
his  wife  to  Matlock  for  change  of  air.  At  Matlock  they 
were  joined  by  the  now  famous  W.  E.  Forster,  then  one 
of  his  ardent  admirers,  and  accompanied  him  to  his  house 
at  Rawdon,  whence  Carlyle  sent  his  mother,  as  usual,  an 
account  of  his  adventures,  which  is  curious  as  showing  his 
habits  of  observation  and  the  objects  which  most  interested 
him.  He  had  seen  all  the  watering-places,  the  wonders  of 
wonders  in  Derbyshire,  '  the  Devil's-i-Peak,'  '  the  horrid 
cavern  so  called,'  &c. 

Among  the  sights  (he  says)  was  that  of  a  lone  old  woman  living 
literally  like  a  rabbit,  burrowed  under  ground.  This  was  near 
Buxton,  a  sight  worth  remembering.  There  are  huge  quarries  of 
lime  there  ;  the  rubbish,  ashes  of  the  kilns,  &c.,  when  many  years 
exposed  to  the  weather,  hardens  into  real  stone,  and  is  then  a  kind 
of  rocky  moleheap  of  large  dimensions,  with  grass  on  the  top. 
The  natives  then  scrape  out  the  inside,  and  make  a  cottage  of  the 
upper  crust!  There  are  five  or  six  such  huts  in  that  place,  and 
used  to  be  more.     This  poor  old  woman  and  her  hut  were  all  as 


A  Sight  at  Bxixtoii,  351 

tidy  as  a  new  pin,  whitewashed,  scoured,  &c.  ;  a  most  sensible, 
haughty,  and  even  dignified  old  woman  ;  had  been  bom  there,  had 
lost  father,  mother,  husband,  son  there,  and  was  drinking  her  poor 
tea  there  in  dignified  solitude  when  we  came,  no  company  with  her 
but  a  cat,  and  no  wish  to  have  any,  she  said,  '  till  the  Lord  was 
pleased  to  take  her  to  those  she  had  lost.'  An  elder  sister,  ui> 
wards  of  fourscore,  inhabiting  with  some  children  and  gi-andchil- 
dren  a  similar  cave  not  far  off,  had  just  fallen  into  the  fire  and 
been  burnt  to  death  two  days  before.  None  of  us,  I  think,  will 
ever  forget  that  poor  old  woman,  with  her  little  teapot,  her  neat 
midch  and  black  libbon,  her  lean  hook  nose  and  black  old  eyes  as 
sharp  as  eagles'.  We  left  a  shilling  with  her  and  gieat  respect, 
and  came  our  way. 

He  might  now  have  liad  his  choice  among  the  great 
liouses  of  tiie  land  if  he  had  cared  to  visit  them,  but  lie 
steadily  reserved  every  available  autumn  for  liis  mother. 
The  week  at  Rawdon  being  over,  his  wife  went  home,  and 
he  made  for  Scotsbrig,  pausing  at  Manchester  with  Miss 
Jewsbury  and  her  brother  Frank  to  see  iron  works  and 
cotton  mills  ;  to  talk  with  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  work- 
ing men,  who  were  studying  liis  writings  with  passionate 
interest,  and  himself  to  be  stared  at  in  the  Jewsbury  draw- 
ing-room by  the  idle  and  curious.  The  most  interesting 
of  his  Manchester  adventures  was  a  day  at  Rochdale,  when 
he  made  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Jacob  Brighj  and  his  dis- 
tinguished brother. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig :  September  13,  1847. 

The  mills !  oh  the  fetid,  fuzzy,  ill-ventilated  mills !  And  in 
Sharp's  cyclopean  smithy  '  do  you  remember  the  poor  *  grinders ' 
sitting  underground  in  a  damp  dark  place,  some  dozen  of  them, 
over  their  screeching  stone  cylinders,  from  every  cylinder  a  sheet 
of  yellow ^7-e  issuing,  the  principal  light  of  the  place?  And  the 
men,  I  was  told,  and  they  themselves  knew  it,  and  '  did  not  mind 
it,' were  all  or  mostly  An7/erf  before  their  time,  their  Inngs  being 
ruined  by  the  metal  and  stone  dust !  Those  poor  fellows,  in  their 
paper  caps  with  their  roaring  grindstones,  and  theii*  yellow  ori' 
*  Mrs.  Carlyle  bad  been  there  ia  a  previuus  year. 


352  Ca/rlyle's  Life  in  London, 

Jiainmes  of  fire,  all  grinding  themselves  so  quietly  to  death,  will 
never  go  out  of  my  memory.  In  signing  my  name,  as  I  was  made 
to  do,  on  quitting  that  Sharp  establishment,  whose  name  think 
you  stood  next,  to  be  succeeded  by  mine  ?  In  a  fine  flowing  char- 
acter, Jenny  Lind's  !  Dickens  and  the  other  Player  Squadron  (want- 
ing Forster,  I  think)  stood  on  the  same  page. 

I  will  tell  you  about  Bright  and  Brightdom,  and  the  Eochdale 
Bright  mill  some  other  day.  Jacob  Bright,  the  younger  man,  and 
actual  manager  at  Rochdale,  rather  pleased  me — a  kind  of  delicacy 
in  his  features  when  you  saw  them  by  daylight— at  all  events,  a 
decided  element  of  '  hero-worship,'  which  of  course  went  for  much. 
But  John  Bright,  the  Anti-Cornlaw  member,  who  had  come  across 
to  meet  me,  with  his  cock  nose  and  pugnacious  eyes  and  Barclay- 
Fox-Quaker  collar — John  and  I  discorded  in  our  views  not  a  little. 
And,  in  fact,  the  result  was  that  I  got  to  talking  occasionally  in 
the  Annandale  accent,  and  communicated  large  masses  of  my 
views  to  the  Brights  and  Brightesses,  and  shook  peaceable  Bright- 
dom as  with  a  passing  earthquake  ;  and,  I  doubt,  left  a  very  ques- 
tionable impression  of  myself  there  !  The  poor  young  ladies 
(Quaker  or  ex-Quaker),  with  their  '  abolition  of  Capital  Punish- 
ment ' — Ach  Gott  !  I  had  great  remorse  of  it  all  that  evening  ;  but 
now  begin  almost  to  think  I  served  them  right.  Any  way  we  can- 
not help  it ;  so  there  it,  and  Lancashire  in  general,  may  lie  for  tlie 
present. 

At  Scotsbrig,  when  he  reached  it,  he  sank  into  what  he 
called  '  stagnation  and  magnetic  sleep.'  ' Grej  hazj  dispirit- 
ment,  lit  for  nothing  but  tobacco  and  silence.'  In  his  own 
country  he  was  as  solitary  as  in  a  foreign  land,  and  had 
more  than  ever  the  feelings  of  a  ghost.  Even  with  his 
mother  he  could  talk  less  freely  than  usual,  for  he  found 
her  '  teri-ibly  sensitive  on  the  Semitic  side  of  things,'  and 
lie  was  beginning  to  think  that  he  must  write  something 
about  that — the  '  Exodus  from  lioundsditch,'  as  he  termed 
it,  being  a  first  essential  step  towards  all  improvement. 
The  news  from  Ireland  disgusted  him,  'Meagher  of  the 
Sword '  talking  open  treason. 

I  think  (he  said)  the  native  people  are  ripening  towards  rebel- 
lion, and  are  not  unlikely  some  of  them  to  get  hanged  before  all 


Mrs,  Carlyle  at  Addwcomhe,  353 

end.  Oh  that  illustrious  O'Connell !  how  fast  his  lies,  like  dragons' 
teeth,  are  sprouting  up  into  armed  and  mad  men  !  The  wonder- 
fullest  benefaction  he  that  oven  this  foolish  age  has  crowned  with 
vivats  and  welcomed  as  one  sent  from  heaven  I 

lie  wandered  about  the  moors  at  night,  '  tlie  driving 
clonds  and  moaning  winds  his  only  company.'  Even  these 
were  not  impressive,  'for  his  heart  was  sunk  into  its  cell, 
and  refused  to  be  impressed.'  He  '  said  silently  to  tlie 
muddy  universe,  Yes,  thou  art  there  then ;  the  fact  is  no 
better  than  so.  Let  me  recognize  the  fact,  and  admit  it 
and  adopt  it.' 

lie  had  reasons  for  uneasiness  besides  the  state  of  the 
universe.  His  wife  had  been  ill  again.  Lady  Harriet 
Baring,  hearing  she  was  alone  in  Cheyne  Row,  had  carried 
her  off  to  Addiscombe,  and  little  guessing  the  state  of  her 
mind,  and  under  the  impression  that  slie  was  hypochon- 
driacal, had  put  her  under  a  course  of  bracing.  She 
wanted  wine  when  she  was  exhausted ;  Lady  Harriet 
thought  wine  unwholesome.  Slie  was  not  allowed  to  go 
to  bed  when  tortured  witli  headache.  She  suffered  from 
cold,  and  liglited  a  fire  in  her  bedroom.  Fires  were  not 
allowed  at  Addiscombe  so  early  in  the  autumn,  and  the 
housemaid  removed  the  coals.  Lady  Harriet  meant  only 
to  be  kind,  but  was  herself  heaping  fuel  on  a  fire  of  a  more 
dangerous  sort.  Carlyle  himself  was  relieved  when  he 
lieard  that  *  she  was  at  home  again,  out  of  that  constrained 
lodging.'  *  My  mother's  rage,'  he  wrote,  '  has  been  con- 
siderable ever  since  she  heard  of  it ;  "  that  the  puir  creature 
could  na  get  a  bit  fire !  not  so  much  as  a  bit  of  fire  for  a' 
their  grandeur.'"  Money,  if  you  exclude  better  things 
which  are  apt  to  go  with  the  want  of  it,  is  of  small  value 
to  the  possessor  or  others.  True  enough !  but  one  asks 
with  wonder  why  he  could  not  tell  Lady  Harriet  plainly 
that,  if  she  wished  for  his  wife's  friendship,  she  must  treat 
her  differently ;  why  he  insisted  on  the  continuance  of  an 
Vol.  III.— 23 


354  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

intimacy  which  could  never  become  an  affectionate  one, 
instead  of  accepting  and  adopting  the  facts,  as  a  condition 
of  the  mud  in  the  universe.  His  mother  was  full  of  tender- 
ness for  her  forlorn  daughter-in-law.  She  insisted,  when 
Carljle  was  going  home,  on  sending  her  '  a  pair  of  coarse 
knit  stockings '  by  him,  '  though  he  said  she  would  never 
wear  them,  and  two  missionary  narratives,  which  even  he 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  read.'  He  was  to  write  his 
wife's  name  in  them  at  Chelsea,  and  say,  '  from  her  old, 
withered  mother.' 

Two  bad  nights  before  his  departure  sent  him  off  in  a 
dreary  condition.  '  Ah  me  ! '  he  exclaimed,  'my  poor  old 
mother,  poor  old  Annandale,  poor  old  life  in  general ;  and 
in  this  shattered  state  of  nerves  all  stands  before  one  with 
such  a  glaring  ghastliness  of  hideous  reality.' 

It  is  curious  that  a  man  with  such  powerful  practical 
sense  should  have  indulged  such  feelings.  It  was  '  the 
nature  of  the  beast,'  as  he  often  said,  but  he  was  evidently 
much  disturbed.  He  was  at  home  by  the  second  week  in 
October,  where  an  unexpected  pleasure  was  waiting  for 
him.  His  friend  Emerson  had  arrived  from  Boston. 
Between  Emerson  and  him  there  had  been  affectionate 
correspondence  ever  since  they  had  met  at  Craigenputtock. 
Emerson  had  arranged  for  the  publication  of  his  books  in 
the  United  States,  and  had  made  his  rights  respected 
there.  He  in  tirrn  had  introduced  Emerson's  Essays  to 
the  English  world  by  a  preface,  and  now  Emerson  had 
come  in  person  to  show  himself  as  a  lecturer  on  English 
platforms.  I  remember  this  visit.  I  already  knew  Emer- 
son by  his  writings  ;  I  then  learned  to  know  him  person- 
ally, for  he  came  to  see  us  at  Oxford,  and  his  conversation, 
perhaps  unknown  to  himself,  had  an  influence  on  my  after 
life.  On  his  first  landing  he  was  a  guest  at  Clieyne  Row, 
and  then  went  away  to  Manchester.  '  I  rather  think,' 
Carlyle  wrote  shortly  after,  'his  popularity  is  not  very 


Eineraon,  355 

great  hitherto.  His  doctrines  are  too  airy  and  thin  for 
the  solid  practical  lieads  of  the  Lancashire  region.  We 
had  immense  talking  with  him  here,  hut  found  he  did  not 
give  us  much  to  chew  the  cud  upon — found,  in  fact,  that 
he  came  with  the  rake  rather  than  the  shovel.  He  is  a 
pure  high-minded  man,  hut  I  thhik  his  talent  is  not  quite 
so  high  as  1  had  anticipated.' 

A  far  more  important  thing  was  what  Carlyle  was  next 
to  do  himself,  for  as  long  as  he  was  idle  he  was  certain  to 
he  miserable — and  he  had  been  idle  now  for  more  than  a 
year.  He  brought  out  another  edition  of  his  '  Miscel- 
lanies '  this  autumn. 

These  books  of  mine,  poor  things !  (he  said,  in  sending  his 
mother  a  copy)  bring  me  in  some  money  now,  like  cows  that  give 
a  drop  of  milk  at  last,  though  they  had  a  temble  time  of  it  as 
calves.  Let  us  be  thankful.  It  is  better  to  have  one's  evil  days 
when  one  is  young  than  when  one  is  old. 

The  '  French  Revolution '  was  going  into  another  edition 
also.  For  this  and  the  ^  Miscellanies '  he  was  paid  600^. 
So  that  he  could  say : — 

I  am  pretty  well  in  funds  at  present,  not  chased  about  as  I  used 
to  be  by  the  haggard  Shade  of  Beggaiy,  which  is  a  great  relief  to 
me.  I  am  very  thankful  for  my  poverty,  and  for  my  deliverance 
from  it  in  good  time. 

In  January  came  an  indispensable  visit  to  the  Barings. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  was  to  have  gone,  and  they  were  to  have 
stayed  four  weeks ;  but  the  wintei-  was  cold ;  she  was 
feeble,  and  afraid  of  a  chill.  Wish  to  go  she  of  course  had 
none ;  and  though  Lady  Harriet  wrote  warmly  pressing 
letters,  she  insisted  on  remaining  at  home.  Carlyle  went, 
but  if  he  describes  his  condition  correctly,  he  could  hardly 
have  been  an  agreeable  guest.  For  him  there  was  no 
peace  but  in  work,  and  life  in  such  houses  was  organised 
idleness.  To  his  mother  he  speaks  of  himself  as  wander- 
ing disconsolately  on  the  shore  watching  the  gangs  of 


356  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Portsmoutli  convicts ;  to  his  wife  as  '  unslept,  dyspeptic, 
bewildered.' 

Ach  Gott!  (he  writes  to  lier).  Why  do  I  complain  to  poor  thee, 
confined  to  thy  own  bed  at  present  ?  Well,  I  will  not  complain. 
Only,  if  you  had  been  strong,  I  would  have  told  you  how  very  weak 
lid  wretched  I  was.  Some  time  about  three,  I  think,  I  got  asleep 
ufier  bathing,  woke  again  some  time  after  five,  went  out  of  doors 
to  smoke,  had  slept  about  three  minutes  more  when  the  valet,  with 
his  brushed  clothes,  started  me  up  again,  and  there  it  ended. 
That  is  my  history,  an  excuse  at  least  for  incoherent  writing.  In 
fact,  if  it  were  not  for  my  own  consolation— for  I  know  thou  lovest 
me  in  spite  of  thy  harsluiesses  and  mistrusts — I  think  I  need  not 
have  written  at  all.  It  seemed  to  me  last  night  with  triple  and  ten- 
fold emphasis  what  it  has  all  along  seemed,  that  I  had  been  much 
better  in  my  own  bed  at  Chelsea. 

He  was  worried,  lie  said,  with  '  the  idleness,  the  folly, 
the  cackling  and  noise.'  Milnes  was  his  best  resource. 
Milnes  had  come,  and  the  Taylors  and  Bullers  and  Bear 
Ellice,  and  the  usual  circle  ;  but  it  would  not  do.  He  was 
sickly,  dispirited,  unwell. 

I  have  (he  said)  with  less  suffering  and  exertion  compassed  the 
attendance  of  six  college  classes  in  my  time.  Perhaps  there  is  a 
lesson  in  this.  Nay,  doubtless  there  is,  and  I  hope  I  shall  learn 
it,  for  the  fees  are  not  inconsiderable.  My  reflections  in  my  few 
hours  of  solitude  in  the  early  mornings,  amid  the  tramj^lings  and 
trottings,  ought  to  be  of  a  didactic  nature. 

Again  a  little  later : — 

For  me,  I  feel  as  if  it  were  little  I  had  got  here,  or  were  likely 
to  get,  but  a  huge  nightmare  of  indigestion,  insomnia,  and  fits  of 
black  impatience  with  myself  and  others — self  chiefly.  ...  I 
am  heartily  sick  of  my  dyspeptic  bewilderment  and  imprisonment. 
Something  beautiful  and  good  is  in  the  heart  of  the  thing  too,  but 
it  is  clearly  not  for  me  (at  least  so  seems  it)  to  unravel  and  get  hold 

of.    says  little  except  elaborate  nothingness  to  the  women,  or 

with  solemnity  reads  Shakespeare.  We  are  a  pretty  society,  but  a 
distracted  one.  Ten  days  of  such,  with  a  cold  to  helj),  is  about 
enough,  I  guess. 


Sterling.  357 

Enougli  it  proved ;  he  could  stand  no  more  of  it,  and 
fled  home.  But  it  is  impossible  not  to  ask  '  What  was 
Carlyle  doing  in  such  a  galley  ? '  Why  was  he  there  at 
all  ?  It  is  with  real  relief  that  I  approach  the  end  of  the 
half-enchanted  state  into  which  he  had  fallen  after  'Crom- 
well.' It  had  been  a  trying  time,  boih  for  his  wife  and 
for  him.  The  next  letter,  written  after  he  had  got  back 
f i-om  Bay  House,  gives  the  first  glimpses  of  intended  fresh 
occupation. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea :  Feb.  12,  1848. 

Jane  has  had  rather  a  wearisome  bout  of  it ;  never  veiy  ill,  but 
feeble,  coughing,  and  quite  unable  to  front  the  bad  season  with 
any  freedom.  She  got  out  of  her  room  about  a  week  ago,  went 
and  had  a  short  walk  in  the  streets  one  day,  but  has  never  ven- 
tured out  since,  the  weather,  though  bright,  having  grown  a  little 
frosty.  She  stirs  about  the  house  now,  and  her  cough  is  well  nigh 
quite  gone.  If  the  sun  were  fairly  on  his  feet,  she  too  will  be  re- 
established, I  think.  ...  A  book  consisting  of  my  poor  friend 
John  Sterling's  scattered  writings  has  just  come  out,  edited  by  one 
Julius  Hare,  an  Archdeacon,  soon  to  be  a  Bishop,  they  say ;  a  good 
man,  but  rather  a  weak  ODe,  with  a  Life  of  Sterling  which  by  no 
means  contents  me  altogether.  Probably  one  of  my  first  tsisks  will 
be  something  in  reference  to  this  work  of  poor  Sterling's ;  for  he 
left  it  in  charge  to  me  too,  and  I  surrendered  my  share  of  the  task 
to  the  Archdeacon,  being  so  busy  with  *  Cromwell '  at  the  time. 
But  I  am  bound  by  very  sacred  considerations  to  keep  a  sharp  eye 
over  it,  and  will  consider  what  can  now  be  done.'  Sterling  was  a 
noble  creature,  but  had  too  little  patience,  and  indeed  too  thin 
and  sick  a  constitution  of  hodyy  to  turn  his  fine  gifts  to  the  best 
account. 

The  Parliament  has  come  back,  and  the  town,  especially  our 
Western  quarter  of  it,  is  getting  very  loud  with  carriages  and  popu- 
lation again.  But  we  hitherto  have  little  to  do  with  all  that. 
There  has  been,  as  you  might  see,  much  vain  controversy  about  a 

'  Emerson  told  me  that  in  the  summer  of  this  year  1848  he  and  Carlyle 
talked  over  this  subject.  They  concluded  that  Sterling  was  too  considerable 
a  man  to  be  set  up  as  a  'theological  cockshy,'  and  that  either  Carlyle  or  he 
himself  must  write  a  true  account  of  him. 


358  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

certain  very  useless  Dr.  Hampden  and  his  being  made  a  bishop 
against  the  will  of  some.  Nothing  could  seem  to  me  more  entirely 
contemptible  and  deplorable  than  the  whole  figure  of  that  thing 
has  been.  Now  they  are  for  getting  Jews  into  Parliament.  For 
the  '  Jew  Bill,'  too,  I  would  not  give  half  a  snuff  of  tobacco,  for  or 
against.  We  will  leave  that  too,  and  much  else,  to  fight  its  own 
battle. 

He  does  not  tell  liis  mother,  as  he  might  have  done  in 
this  last  paragraph,  that  he  had  been  invited  to  take  a  share 
in  that  battle.  I  tell  the  story  as  he  told  it  to  me.  Some 
time  while  the  Jew  Bill  was  before  Parliament,  and  the 
fate  of  it  doubtful.  Baron  Rothschild  wrote  to  ask  him  to 
write  a  pamphlet  in  its  favour,  and  intimated  that  he  might 
name  any  sum  which  he  liked  to  ask  as  payment.  1  in- 
quired how  he  had  answered.  '  Well,'  he  said,  '  I  had  to 
tell  him  it  couldn't  be;  but  I  observed,  too,  that  I  could 
not  conceive  why  he  and  his  friends,  who  were  supposed 
to  be  looking  out  for  the  coming  of  Shiloh,  should  be 
seeking  seats  in  a  Gentile  legislature.'  I  asked  what 
Baron  liothschild  had  said  to  that.  '  Why,'  Carlyle  said, 
'  he  seemed  to  think  the  coming  of  Shiloh  was  a  dubious 
business,  and  that  meanwhile,  &c.  &c.' 

The  Journal  had  remained  almost  a  blank  for  four  years, 
only  a  few  trifling  notes  having  been  jotted  down  in  it, 
but  it  now  contains  a  long  and  extremely  interesting  entry. 
Tlie  real  Carlyle  is  to  be  especially  looked  for  in  this  book, 
for  it  contains  his  dialogues  with  his  own  heart. 

Journals 

Feb.  9,  1848. — Chapman's  money'  all  paid,  lodged  now  in  the 
Dumfries  Bank.  New  edition  of  *  Sartor '  to  be  wanted  soon.  My 
poor  books  of  late  have  yielded  me  a  certain  fluctuating  annual  in- 
come ;  at  all  events,  I  am  quite  at  my  ease  as  to  money,  and  that 
on  such  low  terms.  I  often  wonder  at  the  luxurious  ways  of  the 
age.  Some  1,500/.,  I  think,  is  what  has  accumulated  in  the  bank. 
Of  fixed  income  (from  Craigenputtock)  150/.  a  year.     Perhaps  as* 

*  Chapman  <fe  Hall,  now  Carlyle's  publishers. 


Notes  in  Jaunial.  359 

mnch  from  my  books  may  lie  fixed  amid  the  huge  fluctuation 
(last  year,  for  instance,  it  was  800/. ;  the  year  before  100/. ;  the 
year  before  that  about  700/. ;  this  year  again  it  is  like  to  be  100/. ; 
the  next  perhaps  nothing — very  fluctuating  indeed) — some  300/.  in 
all,  and  that  amply  suflices  me.  For  my  wife  is  the  best  of  house- 
wives ;  noble,  too,  in  reference  to  the  property  which  is  hei's,  whicli 
she  has  never  once  in  the  most  distant  way  seemed  to  know  to  be 
hers.  Be  this  noted  and  remembered ;  my  thrifty  little  lady — 
every  inch  a  lady— ah  me  !  In  short,  I  authentically  feel  indiffer- 
ent to  monfey,  would  not  go  this  way  or  that  to  gain  more  money. 
So  do  the  Destinies  reward  us ;  not  in  the  way  we  expected,  but 
in  a  far  dinner  way.  They  do  make  us  rich  if  we  have  desers'ed 
to  be  so.  How  rich,  for  example,  is  Hudson,  King  of  Railways  ? 
For  certain  quantities  of  yellow  metal  you  can  still  command  him 
to  go  lower  than  any  shoeblack  goes,  to  make  himself  an  unhang- 
able  swindlei'  namely.  That,  I  understand,  as  it  was  explained  to 
me,  has  been  and  is  the  intrinsic  nature  of  many  of  his  operations. 
In  sane  hours  I  sometimes  feel  a  pious  thankfulness  on  the  eco- 
nomic side. 

For  above  two  years  now  I  have  been  as  good  as  totally  idle, 
composedly  lying  fallow.  It  is  frightful  to  think  of !  After  get- 
ting out  of  *  Cromwell,*  my  whole  being  seemed  to  say,  more 
sulkily,  more  weariedly  than  ever  before,  *  What  good  is  it  ?  *  I 
am  wearied  and  near  heartbroken.  Nobody  on  the  whole  '  believes 
my  report.*  The  friendliest  reviewers,  I  can  see,  regard  me  as  a 
wonderful  athlete,  a  ropedancer  whose  perilous  somersets  it  is 
worth  sixpence  (paid  into  the  Circulating  Library)  to  see ;  or  at 
most  I  seem  to  them  a  desperate  half  mad,  if  usefullish  fireman, 
rushing  along  the  ridge  tiles  in  a  frightful  manner  to  quench  the 
burning  chimney.  Not  one  of  them  all  can  or  will  do  the  least  to 
help  me.  The  blockheads !  A  snuff  of  tobacco  for  them  and 
their  eulogies  too !  This  is  what  they  and  their  sweet  voices  are 
worth.  Neither  does  Art,  &c.,  in  the  smallest  hold  out  with  me. 
In  fact,  that  concern  has  all  gone  do'vsTi  with  me,  like  ice  too  thin 
on  a  muddy  pond.  I  do  not  believe  in  "  Art  " — nay,  I  do  believe 
it  to  be  one  of  the  deadliest  cants ;  swallowing,  it  too,  its  heca- 
tombs of  souls.  So  that  the  world,  daily  growing  more  unspeak- 
able in  meaning  to  me,  as  well  as  daily  more  inarticulate,  and  I 
quite  indi.sposed  to  try  speaking  to  it,  the  result  has  been  silence 
and  fallow,  which,  unless  I  will  go  mad^  must  end,  as  I  begin  to 
see,  before  long.     *  Too  much  to  say,'  I  suppose,  is  not  so  bad  a 


360  Ca7iyle's  Life  in  London. 

complaint  as  '  too  little  ; '  but  it  too  is  very  troublesome.  In  brief, 
nothing  is — but  by  labour,  which  we  call  sorrow,  miseiy,  &c.  Thou 
must  gird  up  thy  loins  again  and  work  another  stroke  or  two  be- 
fore thou  die. 

At  Alverstoke  in  January  last,  for  the  third  time  now,' and  very 
full  of  suffering  in  all  ways  there.  Have  seen  a  good  deal  of  tlu^ 
higher  ranks — plenty  of  lords,  politicians,  fine  ladies,  &c.  ^Ce:- 
tainly  a  new  topdressing  for  me  that,  nor  attainable  either  withoul^ 
l^eril.  Let  me  see  if  any  growth  will  come  of  it,  and  what.  The 
most  striking  conclusion  to  me  is,  how  like  all  men  of  all  ranks  in 
England  (and  doubtless  in  every  land)  intrinsically  are  to  one  an- 
other. Our  aristocracy,  I  rather  take  it,  are  the  best,  or  as  good 
as  any  class  we  have  ;  but  their  position  is  fatally  awry.  Their 
whole  breeding  and  way  of  life  is  to  go  '  gracefully  idle ' — most 
tragically  so  ;  and  which  of  them  can  mend  it  ?  X.  was  at  Alver- 
stoke, dull  to  a  degree,  commonplace,  dogmatic,  limited,  product- 
ive of  very  little,  yet  something  essentially  genial,  true,  and  friendly 
in  the  heart  of  him  withal ;  an  honest  man,  precious,  though  with 
only  insular  or  even  parish  culture — enveloped  in  Southeyisms, 
Shovel-hattisms,  &c.  Milnes  also  was  there,  fresh  from  Spain, 
full  of  sophistries  and  socialities  as  usual.  I  was  very  solitary, 
sleepless,  and  unhappy  all  the  time.  Came  off  after  ten  days,  as 
Jane  could  not  risk  venturing  after  me.  ,  .  .  Alfred  Tennyson 
here  sometimes  lately.  Gone  out  of  town  with  a  cer;:ain  Aubrey 
de  Vere  to  Curragh  Chase,  Limerick.  His  *  Princess, '  a  gorgeous 
piece  of  writing,  but  to  me  new  melancholy  proof  of  the  futility  of 
what  they  call  '  Art.'  Alas  !  Alfred  too,  I  fear,  will  prove  one  of 
the  sacrificed,  and  in  very  deed  it  is  pity.^  Emerson  is  now  in 
England,  in  the  North,  lecturing  to  Mechanics'  Institutes,  &c.;  in 
fact,  though  he  knows  it  not,  to  a  kind  of  intellectual  canaille. 
Came  here  and  stayed  with  us  some  days  on  his  first  arrival.  Very 
exotic ;  of  smaller  dimensions,  too,  and  differed  much  from  me,  as 
a  gymnosophist  sitting  idle  on  a  flowery  bank  may  do  from  a 
wearied  worker  and  wrestler  passing  that  way  with  many  of  his 
bones  broken.  Good  of  him  I  could  get  none,  excejjt  from  his 
friendly  looks  and  elevated  exotic  polite  ways ;  and  he  would  not 
let  me  sit  silent  for  a  minute.  Solitary  on  that  side,  too,  then  ? 
Be  it  so,  if  so  it  must  be.     But  we  will  try  a  little  farther.     Lone- 

*  Carlyle  mentions  in  one  of  his  letters  that  it  had  been  he  who  first  set  on 
foot  the  requisition  to  the  Government  for  Tennyson's  pension.  For  himself 
ha  never  sought  a  pension,  nor  would  accept  one  when  offered. 


Projects  for  New  BooJcs.  361 

lier  man  is  not  in  this  world  that  I  know  of.  .  .  .  No  deliverance 
from  *  confusion,'  from  pi*actical  unc&i'tainty^  and  all  its  sad  train 
of  miseries  and  waste,  is  to  be  looked  for  while  one  continues  in 
this  world.  Life  consists,  as  it  were,  in  the  sifting  of  huge  rubbish- 
mounds,  and  the  choosing  from  them,  ever  with  more  or  less  error, 
what  is  golden  and  vital  to  us. 

Schemes  of  books  to  be  now  set  about. 

*  Exodiis  /ro7n  Houjiclsditch.'  That,  alas!  is  impossible  as  yet, 
though  it  is  the  gist  of  all  writings  and  wise  books,  I  sometimes* 
think — the  goal  to  be  wisely  aimed  at  as  the  first  of  all  for  us. 
Out  of  Houndsditch,  indeed  !  Ah,  were  wo  but  out  and  had 
our  own  along  with  us !  But  they  that  come  out  hitherto  come  in 
a  state  of  brutal  nakedness,  scandalous  mutilation  ;  and  impartial 
bystanders  say  soiTowf ully,  '  Return  rather,  it  is  better  even  to  re- 
turn.' 

*  Ireland:  Spiritual  Sketches'  Begin  with  St.  Colm.  ;  end  with 
the  rakes  of  Malloic.  All  lies  in  Spiritualism.  The  outer  miseries 
of  Ireland,  and  of  all  lands,  are  nothing  but  the  inevitable  body  of 
that  soul.  Had  I  more  knowledge  of  Ireland,  I  could  make  some- 
thing of  it  in  tliat  foim. 

*  Life  of  John  Sterling.*  I  really  must  draw  up  some  statement 
on  that  subject — some  picture  of  a  gifted  soul  whom  I  knew,  and 
who  was  my  friend.  Might  not  many  things  withal  be  taught  in 
the  course  of  such  a  delineation  ? 

*  The  Scavenger  Age.^  Chad  wick's  men  are  working  in  sight  of 
me  daily  at  present  at  Chelsea  old  Church.  Our  age  is  really  up 
to  nothing  better  than  the  sweeping  out  the  gutter.  Might  it  but 
do  that  well !     It  is  the  indispensable  beginning  of  alL 

The  Exodns  from  Houndsditcli  Carlyle  saw  to  be  then 
impossible — impossible;  and  yet  the  essential  preliminary 
of  true  spiritual  recovery.  The  '  Hebrew  old  clothes ' 
were  attached  so  closely  to  pious  natures  that  to  tear  off 
the  wrapping  would  be  to  leave  their  souls  to  perish  in 
spiritual  nakedness ;  and  were  so  bound  up  with  the  na- 
tional moral  convictions  that  the  sense  of  duty  could  not 
be  separated  from  a  belief  in  the  technical  inspiration  of 
the  IBible.  And  yet  Carlyle  knew  that  it  could  do  no 
good  to  anyone  to  believe  what  was  untrue  ;  and  he  knew 
also  tliafr  since  science  had  made  known  to  us  the  i*eal  re* 


362  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

lation  between  this  globe  of  ours  and  tlie  stupendous  uni- 
verse,  no  man  whose  inind  and  heart  were  sound  could 
any  longer  sincerely  believe  in  the  Christian  creed.  The 
most  that  such  a  man  could  arrive  at  was  to  persuade  him- 
self by  refined  reasonings  that  it  might  perhaps  be  true, 
that  it  could  not  be  proved  false,  and  that  therefore  he 
might  profess  it  openly  from  the  lips  outwards  with  a 
clear  conscience.  Eut  the  convictions  which  govern  the 
practical  lives  of  men  are  not  remote  possibilities,  but  con- 
crete certainties.  As  long  as  the  '  Holy  Place '  in  their 
souls  is  left  in  possession  of  powerless  opinions,  they  are 
practically  without  God  in  this  world.  The  '  wealth  of 
nations '  comes  to  mean  material  abundance,  and  individ- 
ual duty  an  obligation  to  make  money  ;  while  intellect, 
not  caring  to  waste  itself  on  shadows,  constructs  philoso- 
phies to  show  that  God  is  no  necessity  at  all.  Carlyle's 
faith,  on  the  other  hand,  was  that  without  a  spiritual  be- 
lief— a  belief  in  a  Divine  Being,  in  the  knowledge  of 
whom  and  obedience  to  whom  mortal  welfare  alone  con- 
sisted— the  human  race  must  degenerate  into  brutes.  He 
longed,  therefore,  that  the  windows  of  the  shrine  should- 
be  washed  clean,  and  the  light  of  heaven  let  into  it.  The 
longer  the  acknowledgment  of  the  facts  regarding  inspira- 
tion, &c.,  was  delayed,  the  more  hollow  grew  the  estab- 
lished creeds,  the  falser  the  professional  advocates  of  the 
creeds,  the  more  ungodly  the  life  and  philosophy  of  the 
world.  It  was  said  of  old,  '  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  hypocrites ;  for  ye  enter  not  in  yourselves,  and 
those  that  would  enter  in  ye  will  not  suffer.' 

Yes  (he  exclaimed),  the  Redeemer  liveth.  He  is  no  Jew,  or 
image  of  a  man,  or  surplice,  or  ohl  creed,  but  the  Unnameable 
Maker  of  us,  -voiceless,  formless  within  our  own  soul,  whose  voice 
?.s  every  noble  and  genuine  impulse  of  our  souls.  He  is  yet  there, 
in  us  and  around  us,  and  we  are  there.  No  Eremite  or  fanatic 
whatever  had  more  than  w^e  have ;  how  much  less  had  most  of 
them  ? 


Kcodus  from  Houndsditch,  3G3 

Why,  then,  did  he  find  it  tmpossible  to  speak  plainly  on 
this  momentous  subject  ?  Because,  as  he  had  said  of  the 
poor  priests  at  Bruges,  because,  false  as  they  were,  there 
was  notliing  to  take  their  places  if  they  were  cast  out  but 
the  Gospel  of  Progress,  which  was  falser  even  than  they. 
God  Himself  would  in  due  time  build  a  new  temple  for 
Himself  above  the  ruins  of  the  old  beliefs.  He  himself, 
meanwhile,  would  do  ill  to  wound  simple  hearts  like  that 
of  his  poor  old  mother.  His  resolution  was  often  hardly 
tested.  Often  he  would  exclaim  fiercely  against  '  detest- 
able idolatries.'  Often,  on  the  appearance  of  some  more 
than  usuall}^  insincere  episcopal  manifesto,  he  would  wish 
the  Bishops  and  all  their  works  dead  as  Etruscan  sooth- 
sayers. But  the  other  mood  was  the  more  prevalent.  He 
spoke  to  me  once  with  loathing  of  Renan's  '  Vie  de  Jesus.' 
I  asked  if  he  thought  a  true  life  could  be  written.  He 
said,  'Yes,  certainly,  if  it  were  right  to  do  it ;  but  it  is  not.' 

The  Exodus,  nevertheless,  always  lay  before  him  as  a 
thing  that  would  have  to  be,  if  men  were  ever  to  recover 
their  spiritual  stature.  *  The  ancient  mythologies  and 
religions,'  he  says  in  his  Journal,  '  were  merely  religious 
readings  of  the  History  of  Antiquit}^,  genial  apprehensions, 
and  genial  (that  is,  always  divine)  representations  of  the 
events  of  earthly  life,  such  as  occur  yet,  only  that  we  have 
no  geniality  to  take  them  up,  nothing  but  stupidity  to  take 
them  up  with.' 

All  sorrows  are  included  in  that,  the  fountain  of  degradation  for 
the  modern  man,  who  is  thereby  reduced  to  baseness  in  every  de- 
partment of  his  existence,  and  remains  hopelessly  captive  and 
caitiff  till  that  nightmare  be  lifted  off  him.  Oh,  ye  Colleges  of 
Ancient  Art,  Modem  Art,  High  Art !  oh,  ye  Priest  Sanhedrims ! 
ye  Modern  Colleges,  Royal  Academies,  ye  Greek  Nightmares,  and 
still  worse  Hebrew  Nightmares,  that  press  out  the  soul  of  poor 
England  and  poor  Europe,  when  will  you  take  flight,  and  let  us 
have  a  little  breath,  think  you  ?  Exodus  from  Houndsditch,  I  bo- 
lieve,  is  the  firat  beginning  of  such  deliveittnce. 


364  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

Almost  forty  years  have  passed  since  these  words  were 
written,  and  we  still  wait  to  be  delivered.  Nay,  some 
think  that  we  need  no  deliverance — avon  iroTa\iMv  lepwu 
Xoypova-L  irayaL  The  water  of  life  is  again  flowing  in  the 
old  fountains.  It  may  be  so.  The  Ark  of  the  Church 
has  been  repainted  and  gilded  and  decorated,  and  with 
architecture  and  coloured  windows,  and  choral  services, 
and  incense,  and  candlesticks,  and  symbolic  uniforms  for 
mystic  officiators,  seemingly  the  dying  body  has  been  elec- 
trified into  a  semblance  of  animation.  Is  this  life  or  merely 
galvanism  ?  There  are  other  signs  not  favourable  to  the 
pretensions  of  the  Church  revivalists.  The  air  has  cleared. 
It  is  no  longer  a  sin  to  say  what  one  thinks,  and  power  no 
longer  weights  the  scale  in  favour  of  orthodoxy.  Forty  years 
ago  the  law  said  to  a  clergyman,  *  You  shall  teach  what 
the  formulas  prescribe,  whether  you  believe  it  or  not,  and 
you  shall  stay  at  your  post,  even  though  you  know  that 
you  disbelieve  it ;  for  you  shall  enter  no  other  profession ; 
you  shall  teach  this,  or  you  shall  starve.'  That  is  gone, 
and  nmch  else  is  gone.  Men  are  allowed  to  think  and 
speak  as  they  will  without  being  punished  by  social  ostra- 
cism. Truth  must  stand  henceforth  by  its  own  strength, 
and  what  is  really  incredible  will  cease  to  be  believed. 
Very  much  of  the  change  in  this  happy  direction  is  due  to 
Carlyle's  influence;  in  this  direction,  and  perhaps  also  in 
the  other,  for  every  serious  man,  of  every  shade  of  opinion, 
had  to  thank  him  for  the  loud  trumpet  notes  which  had 
awakened  the  age  out  of  its  sleep. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

A.D.  1848-9.     ^T.  53-54. 

Revolutions  of  February  in  Paris — Thoughts  on  Democracy — 
London  Society — Macaulay — Sir  Robert  Peel — Chartist  peti- 
tion, April  10 — Articles  in  the  '  Examiner  ' — Paris  battles  in 
the  streets — Emerson — Visit  to  Stonehenge — The  Reaction 
in  Europe— Death  of  the  first  Lord  Ashburton,  and  of  Charles 
BuUer — IVlazzini  at  Rome — King  Hudson,— Arthur  Clough — 
First  introduction  to  Carlyle — His  appearance. 

One  or  other  of  the  subjects  for  a  new  book  on  which  we 
saw  Carlyle  to  be  meditating  would  pi-obably  have  been 
now  selected,  when  suddenly,  like  a  bolt  out  of  the  sky, 
came  the  Revolution  of  February  24  at  Paris.  Tlie  other 
nations  of  Europe  followed  suit,  the  kings,  as  Carlyle 
expressed  it,  '  running  about  like  a  gang  of  coiners  when 
the  police  had  come  among  them.'  Ireland  blazed  out. 
English  Chartists  talked  of  '  physical  force.'  The  air 
seemed  charged  with  lightning,  threatening  the  founda- 
tions of  modern  society.  So  extraordinary  a  phenomenon 
surprised  Carlyle  less  than  it  surprised  most  of  his  con- 
temporaries. It  confirmed  what  he  had  been  saying  for 
many  years.  The  universal  dungheap  had  caught  fire 
again.  Imposture  was  bankrupt  once  more,  and  'Shams' 
this  time,  it  was  to  be  hoped,  would  be  finished  off  in 
earnest.  He  did  not  believe  in  immediate  convulsion 
in  England ;  but  he  did  believe  that,  unless  England 
took  warning  and  mended  her  ways,  her  turn  would 
come. 


366  '  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

Journal. 

March  4,  1848.— Third  French  insurrection.  Louis  Philippe 
flung  out ;  he  and  his  entire  pack,  with  a  kind  of  exquisite  ig- 
nominy, 'driving  off  in  a  street  cab,'  the  fraternity  arriving  here 
in  slow  detail,  dribbling  in  for  a  week  past,  all  the  young  men 
without  their  wives.  Louis  Phili^jpe  himself,  the  old  scoundrel, 
is  since  Saturday  night  safe  at  Claremont ;  came  to  England  in  an 
old  P-jacket,  like  King  Crispin. 

March  5. — Scheme  of  volume  :  Democracy.  What  one  might 
have  to  say  on  it  ?  (1)  Inevitable  now  in  all  countries  :  regarded 
vulgarly  as  the  solution.  Reason  why  it  cannot  be  so  ;  something 
farther  and  ultimate.  (2)  Terrible  disadvantage  of  the  Talking 
Necessity  ;  much  to  be  said  here.  What  this  comes  from.  Prop- 
erly an  insincere  character  of  mind.  (3)  Follows  deducible  out  of 
that !  Howardlsm.  Regard  every  Abolition  Principle  man  as 
your  enemy,  ye  reft)rmers.  Let  them  insist  not  that  punishment 
be  abolished,  but  that  it  fall  on  the  right  heads.  (4)  FictionSy 
under  which  head  come  Cants,  Phantasms,  i*las  !  Law,  Gospel, 
Royalty  itself.  (5)  Labour  question.  Necessity  of  government. 
Notion  of  voting  to  all  is  delirium.  Only  the  vote  of  the  wise  is 
called  for,  of  advantage  even  to  the  voter  himself.  Raj)id  and  in- 
evitable progress  of  anarchy.  Want  of  bearing  rule  in  all  private 
departments  of  life.  Melancholy  remedy  :  '  Change  as  often  as 
you  like.'  (6)  Though  men  insincere,  not  all  equally  so.  A  great 
choice.  How  to  know  a  sincere  man.  Be  sincere  yourself.  Career 
open  to  talent.  This  actually  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter. 

Six  things.  It  would  make  a  volume.  Shall  I  begin  it  ?  I  am 
sick,  lazy  and  dispirited. 

The  state  of  Europe  was  too  interesting  and  too  obscure 
to  permit  composure  for  writing.  For  the  four  months 
of  that  spring,  the  papers  each  morning  announced  some 
fresh  convulsion,  and  tlie  coolest  thinkers  could  only  look 
on  and  watcli.  When  the  Young  Ireland  deputation  went 
to  Paris  to  ask  tlie  Provisional  Government  to  give  a  lift 
to  the  Irish  Republic,  war  with  France  was  at  one  mo- 
ment on  the  cards.  Ledru  Rollin  and  the  advanced  sec- 
tions, knowing  that  if  peace  continued  they  would  have  to 


Lojulmi  in  the  Spring  of  1848.  367 

reckon  with  the  reaction,  were  inclined  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  179^  and  go  in  for  a  repnblican  propagandism. 
Carlyle's  general  thoughts  are  expressed  in  an  interesting 
letter  to  Erskine. 

To  Thomas  Eiskine,  Linlatlieii. 

Chelsea :  March  24, 1848. 

To  ns  as  to  you  this  immense  explosion  of  democracy  in  France, 
and  from  end  to  end  of  Europe,  is  very  remarkable  and  full  of  in- 
terest. Certainly  never  in  our  time  was  there  seen  such  a  spec- 
tacle of  history  as  we  are  now  to  look  at  and  assist  in.  I  call  it 
vei-y  joyful ;  yet  also  unutterably  sad.  Joyful,  inasmuch  as  we  are 
taught  again  that  all  mortals  do  long  towards  justice  and  veracity  ; 
that  no  strongest  charlatan,  no  cunningest  fox  of  a  Louis  Philippe, 
with  his  great  Master  to  \ie\\)  him,  can  found  a  habitation  upon 
lies,  or  establish  a  '  throne  of  iniquity ' — nay,  that  he  cannot  even 
attempt  such  a  problem  in  these  times  any  more  ;  which  we  may 
take  to  be  blessed  news  indeed,  in  the  pass  we  were  come  to. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  sad  that  the  news  ahould  be  so  new 
(for  that  is  really  the  vital  point  of  the  mischief)  ;  that  all  the 
world,  in  its  protest  against  False  Government,  should  find  no 
remedy  but  that  of  rushing  into  No  Government  or  anarchy  (king- 
lessness),  which  I  take  this  republican  universal  suifragism  to  in- 
evitably be.  Happily  they  are  not  disposed  to  fight,  at  least  not 
with  swords,  just  yet ;  but  abundance  oi  fighting  (probably  enough 
in  all  kinds)  one  does  see  in  store  for  them  ;  and  long  years  and 
generations  of  weltering  confusion,  miserable  to  contemplate,  be- 
fore anything  can  be  settled  again.  Hardly  since  the  invasion  of 
the  wild  Teutons  and  wreck  of  the  old  Roman  Empire  has  there 
been  so  strange  a  Europe,  all  turned  topsy  turvy,  as  we  now  see. 
What  was  at  the  top  has  come,  or  is  rapidly  coming,  to  the 
bottom,  where  indeed,  such  was  its  intrinsic  quality,  it  deserved 
this  long  while  past  to  be. 

All  over  London  people  are  loud  upon  the  French,  Hdtel  de 
Ville  especially  ;  censure  universal,  or  light  mockery  ;  no  recogni- 
tion among  us  for  what  of  merit  those  poor  people  have  in  their 
strange  and  perilous  position  at  present.  Right  to  hurl  out  Louis 
Philipi^,  most  of  us  said  or  thought,  but  there  I  think  our  ap- 
proval ended.  The  what  next  upon  which  the  French  had  been 
thinking,  none  of  our  people  will  seriously  ask  themselves.  I,  in 
vain,  strive  to  explain  that  this  of  the  '  organisation  of  labour '  is 


368  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

precisely  the  question  of  questions  for  all  governments  whatsoever; 
that  it  vitally  behoved  the  poor  French  Provisional  to  attempt  a 
solution  ;  that  by  theu'  present  implements  and  methods  it  seems 
impossible  they  should  succeed  ;  but  that  they,  and  what  is  better, 
all  governments,  must  actually  make  some  advance  towards  suc- 
cess and  solve  said  question  more  and  more,  or  disappear  swiftly 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  without  successors  nominated.  There 
seems  to  me  only  that  alternative  ;  and,  however  it  may  fare  with 
the  French,  I  calculate  that  we  here  at  home  shall  profit  inexpres- 
sibly by  such  an  example,  if  we  be  wise  to  try  the  inevitable  prob- 
lem while  it  is  yet  time.  In  fact,  I  have  a  kind  of  notion  to  write 
a  book  about  it,  I  myself ;  but  I  am  not  yet  grown  sufficiently 
miserable  to  set  about  it  straightway.  Fraternity,  liberty,  &c.,  I 
want  to  explain,  is  not  the  remedy  at  all ;  but  true  government  by 
the  wise,  true,  and  noble-minded  of  the  foolish,  perverse,  and 
dark,  with  or  against  their  consent ;  which  I  discern  to  be  the 
eternal  law  of  the  world,  and  a  rugged  and  severe  but  most  blessed 
law,  terribly  forgotten  in  the  universal  twaddle,  insincerity,  and 
cowardly  sloth  of  these  latter  times.  Peace  !  peace  !  when  there 
is  no  peace  ?  I  have,  in  fact,  a  great  many  things  to  say,  far  too 
many  ;  and  my  heart  is  as  if  half-dead,  and  has  no  wish  to  speak 
any  more,  but  to  lie  silent,  if  so  might  be,  till  it  sank  into  the 
Divine  silence,  and  were  then  at  rest.     Courage,  however  I 

London  parties  in  an  *  era  of  revolutions '  were  excited 
and  exciting.  The  leading  men  came  out  with  their  opin- 
ions with  less  reserve.  Carlyle  had  frequently  met  Ma- 
caulay  in  drawing-rooms;  but  they  had  rather  avoided 
each  other.  He  had  been  much  struck,  many  years  before, 
with  the  '  Essay  on  Milton  ; '  indeed  to  the  last  he  always 
spoke  respectfully  of  Macaulay  ;  but  wlien  two  men  of 
positive  temperament  hold  views  diametrically  opposite, 
and  neither  can  entertain  even  a  suspicion  that  the  other 
may  accidentally  be  right,  conversation  between  them  is 
usually  disagreeable.  Thus  they  had  not  sought  for  any 
closer  acquaintance,  and  common  friends  had  not  tried  to 
bring  them  together.  It  happened  now  and  then,  how- 
ever, that  they  were  guests  at  the  same  table. 


Acquaintan/^  with  Ped.  360 

Journal. 

March  14,  1848. — Friday  last  at  Lord  Mahon's  to  breakfast; 
Macaulaj,  Lord  and  Lady  Ashley  there,  &c.  Niagara  of  eloquent 
commonplace  talk  from  Macaulay.  *  Very  good-natured  man  ; ' 
man  cased  in  official  mail  of  proof;  stood  my  impatient  tire- 
explosions  with  much  patience,  merely  liissing  a  little  steam  up, 
and  continued  his  Niagara— supply  and  demand ;  power  minous 
to  powerful  himself ;  mpossibility  of  Government  doing  more 
than  keep  the  peace  ;  suicidal  distraction  of  new  Frenc4i  republic, 
&.C.  Essentially  irremediable,  commonplace  nature  of  the  man ; 
all  that  was  in  him  now  gone  to  the  tongue  ;  a  squat,  thickset,  low- 
browed, short,  grizzled  little  man  of  fifty.  These  be  thy  gods,  oh 
Israel !  Ashley  is  very  stmight  between  the  eyes — a  bad  form  of 
physiognomy ;  otherwise  a  stately  aristocratic-looking  man. 

A  far  more  interesting  meeting  was  with  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  'one  of  tlie  few  men  in  England  whom  Carlyle  had 
any  curiosity  to  see.'  Peel  had  known  him  by  sight  since 
the  present  of  '  Cromwell,'  and  had  given  him  looks  of 
recognition  when  they  met  in  the  streets.  The  Barings 
brought  about  a  personal  acquaintance,  which  increased 
till  Peel's  death.     It  began  at  a  dinner  at  Bath  House. 

Journal. 

March  27. — ^Went  to  the  Peel  enterprise  ;  sate  next  Sir  Kob- 
ert — an  evening  not  unpleasant  to  remember.  Peel  is  a  finely- 
made  man  of  strong,  not  heavy,  rather  of  elegant,  stature  ;  stands 
straight,  head  slightly  thrown  back,  and  eyelids  modestly  droop- 
ing ;  every  way  mild  and  gentle,  yet  with  less  of  that  fixed  smile 
than  the  portraits  give  him.  He  is  towards  sixty,  and,  though  not 
broken  at  all,  carries,  especially  in  his  complexion,  when  you  are 
near  him,  marks  of  that  age  :  clear,  strong  blue  eyes  which  kindle 
on  occasion,  voice  extremely  good,  low-toned,  something  of  cooing 
in  it,  rustic,  affectionate,  honest,  mildly  persuasive.  Spoke  about 
French  Revolutions  new  and  old  ;  well  read  in  all  that ;  had  seen 
General  Dumouriez ;  reserved  seemingly  by  nature,  obtrudes 
nothing  of  diplomatic  reserve.  On  the  contrary,  a  vein  of  mild/un 
in  him,  real  sensibility  to  the  ludicrous,  which  feature  I  liked  best 
of  aU.  Nothing  in  that  slight  insx)ection  seemed  to  promise  better 
Vol.  m.-^ 


370  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

in  liim  than  his  laugh.     '  Milnes  Ouvrier,' '  he  said  to  M ,  with 

an  innocent  archness,  in  allusion  to  our  coming  revolution.  *  I 
reserves  myself  for  the  toolip '  (for  the  mitre  on  the  coach  panel)  ; 
so  said  a  London  rioter  in  the  Reform  Bill  time,  when  a  body  of 
the  rioters  had  been  set  to  howl  down  the  Lords  in  their  coat-of- 
j  arms  coaches.  '  Why  don't  you  shout  ?  '  cries  one.  *  No,'  answered 
his  neighbour,  '  I  reserves  myself  for  the  toolip. '  They  say  this  is 
a  common  story  of  Peel's.  He  told  it  very  well,  and  one  likes  to 
see  the  grave  politician  taking  hearty  hold  of  such  a  thing.  Shall 
I  see  the  Premier  again  ?  I  consider  him  by  far  our  first  puldic 
man — which  indeed  is  saying  little — and  hope  that  England  in 
these  frightful  times  may  still  get  some  good  of  him. 

N.B. — This  night  with  Peel  was  the  night  in  which  Berlin  city 
executed  its  last  terrible  battle  (19th  of  March  to  Sunday  morning 
the  20th,  five  o'clock).  While  we  sate  there  the  streets  of  Berlin 
city  were  all  blazing  with  grapeshot  and  the  war  of  enraged  men. 
What  is  to  be(3ome  of  all  that  ?  I  have  a  book  to  write  about  it. 
Alas ! 

We  hear  of  a  great  Chartist  petition  to  be  presented  by  200,000 
men.  People  here  keep  up  their  old  foolish  levity  in  speaking  of 
these  things  ;  but  considerate  persons  find  them  to  be  very  grave ; 
and  indeed  all,  even  the  laughers,  are  in  considerable  secret  alarm. 

The  Chartist  petition  and  the  once  famous  April  10,  are 
now  all  but  forgotten  ;  the  main  points  of  the  Charter 
having  become  law,  with  what  advantage  to  those  who 
threatened  to  fight  for  them  they  themselves  can  best  tell. 
The  day  itself  and  what  happened  upon  it  are  described 
by  Carlyle  in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  who  had  been  carried  off 
to  Addiscombe  again  for  change  of  air.  He  had  been 
trying  to  set  some  of  his  thoughts  on  paper. 

The  history  of  all  Europe  (he  had  noted  on  April  5)  is  at  present 
to  me  the  saddest,  though  on  the  whole  decisive  and  universal  ex- 
pulsion and  ejection  of  the  genus  Sham  King  is  less  mournful, 
than  quiescent  composed  satisfaction  with  said  accursed  genus, 
which  used  to  be,  and  still  is  Z^ere,  the  general  law.  The  future 
for  all  countries  fills  me  with  a  kind  of  horror.  I  have  been  scrib- 
bling, scribble,  scribble — alas !  it  will  be  long  before  that  makes 

1  Albert  Ouvrier  was  one  of  the  famous  ten  members  of  the  Provisional 
Grovernment  at  Paris. 


"The  Tenth  of  April  371 

a  book.  Persist  however.  Anthony  Sterling  has  sworn  himself  in 
as  anti-Chartist  special  constable.  All  the  i)eoplo  are  swearing  in, 
he  says,  and  in  considerable  alarm  about  Monday  next  and  the 
200,000  processioning  petitionei-s. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlykf  at  Addiscombe. 

CheUea  :  April  10,  1848. 

The  demon  got  mo  last  night,  for  I  could  not  sleep.  ...  I 
have  lived  all  day  without  speaking  twenty  words  hitherto,  a  most 
shivering,  dispirited,  disgraceful  kind  of  creature,  and  am  more 
like  an  ancient  Egyptian  mummy  at  present  than  a  modem  living 
British  man. 

How  can  I  tell  you  of  the  *  Revolution '  in  these  circumstances? 
I  did  go  out  earlier  than  usual  to  see  it,  or  at  least  all  buttoned  up, 
and  decided  to  walk  myself  into  a  glow  of  heat — but — but  the 
venomous  cold  wind  began  unexpectedly  in  Cadogan  Place  to  spit 
rain,  and  I  had  no  umbrella !  At  Burlington  Areade  things  had 
grown  so  questionable  in  that  resj^ect,  I  resolved  to  step  in  for  a 
few  minutes,  which  done  I  found  the  rain  had  commenced  pouring, 
and  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  hail  a  Chelsea  omnibus  and  come 
home  again.  Judge  then  whether  I  can  tell  you  of  the  *  Revolu- 
tion.' My  sole  knowledge  of  it  is  from  my  eyes  in  the  above  short 
distance,  and  from  a  kind  of  official  individual,  a  *  Paisley  lawyer 
bodie,'  to  whom  I  put  three  words  of  question  and  got  an  answer 
of  inordinate  length,  indeed  longer  than  I  would  take  with  the 
rain  just  beginning  to  be  serious.  Know,  however,  oh  Goody  I 
there  is  no  revolution  nor  any  like  to  be  for  some  months  or  years 
yet ;  that  the  City  of  London  is  as  safe  and  quiet  as  the  farm  of 
Addiscombe ;  and  that  empty  i-umoui-s  and  150,000  oaths  of  special 
constables  is  hitherto  the  sole  amount  of  this  adventure  for  us. 
Piccadilly  itself,  however,  told  us  how  frightened  the  people  were. 
Directly  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  one  could  see  that  there  was  some- 
thing in  the  wind.  "Wellington  had  his  iron  blinds  all  accurately 
down  ;  the  Green  Park  was  altogether  shut,  even  the  footpaths  of 
it ;  the  big  gates  of  Constitution  Hill ;  and  in  the  inside  there 
stood  a  score  of  mounted  Guardsmen  privately  drawn  up  under  the 
arch — dreadfully  cold,  I  dare  say.  For  the  rest,  not  a  single 
fashionable  caniage  was  on  the  street ;  not  a  private  vehicle,  but, 
I  think,  two  surgeons'  broughams,  all  the  way  to  Egyi>tian  Hall ; 
omnibuses  ninning,  a  few  street  cabs,  and  even  a  mud  cart  or  two ; 
nothing  else ;  the  flag  pavements  also  neai'ly  vacant,  not  a  fifth  of 


373  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

their  nsual  population  there,  and  those  also  of  the  strictly  busi- 
ness kind ;  not  a  gentleman  to  be  seen,  hardly  one  or  two  of  the 
sort  called  gents.  '  Most  mysterus  1 '  Happily,  however,  the 
Paisley  body  explained  it  all  to  me.  A  meeting,  some  kind  of 
meeting,  had  been  allowed  to  take  place  at  Kennington  Common  ; 
but  Feargus  O'Connor  had  there  warned  the  said  meeting  that 
there  would  and  should  be  no  *  procession,'  but  that  everybody, 
tinder  pain  of  broken  crowTis,  must  now  malte  for  home  in  a  de- 
tached capacity ;  which,  said  the  Paisley  body,  is  at  this  time 
being  peaceably  done,  and,  continued  he,  the  people  of  these 
streets  are  all  gone  to  the  New  Road  to,  &c.,  &c.,  in  hopes  of  see- 
ing the  *  procession '  pass,  and  there  is  no  *  procession  ! '   And 

I  started  off  here  waving  my  adieus,  and  took  shelter  in  Burling- 
ton Arcade.  This  is  all  I  know  about  the  No  Revolution  we  have 
just   sustained  :    and  so  may  the  Lord    put  an  end  to  all  cruel 


The  book  that  was  to  be  written  could  not  take  shape. 
He  knew  that  lie  ought  to  say  something,  he  the  author 
of  'Chartism,'  now  that  the  world  was  turning  upside 
down,  and  Cliartism  was  actually  moving.  Foolish  peo- 
ple, too,  came  about  him,  pressing  for  his  opinions.  From 
his  account  of  the  reception  wliich  he  gave  them,  they 
were  not  likely  to  come  a  second  time. 

Aprill3,  11  P.M. 
Oh,  my  dear,  be  sorry  for  me !     I  am  nearly  out  of  my  wits. 
From  three  o'clock  till  now  I  have  been  in  a  tempest  of  twaddle. 
.     .     .     Just  when  I  was  about  escaping  into  solitude  and  a  walk 

through  the  lanes,  enter  D and  P .     To  them  R ,  and 

a  violent  diatribe  extorted  from  me  about  Chartisms — a  most 
wearisome,  wearing  walk  and  talk.  IVIay  the  de\il  take  that 
wretched  mortal  who  never  walks  with  me  but  for  my  sins  !     .     .     . 

In  the  evening  came  in  poor  E ,  and  shortly  after  the  *  Ape,' 

and  they  are  but  gone  this  minute.  May  the  devil  confound  it ! 
I  feel  as  if  I  had  got  enough  for  one  day.  ...  No  wonder  I 
am  surly  at  people.  The  wonder  is  rather  I  do  not  shoot  them. 
You  wretched  people  !  you  cannot  help  me,  you  can  only  hinder 
me.  Of  you  I  must  for  ever  petition  in  vain  that  you  would  sim- 
ply not  mind  me  at  all,  but  fancy  in  your  hearts  I  was  a  gray  stone, 
and  so  leave  me.     .    »    .     E was  in  the  car  along  with  Fear- 


Chart  lain.  373 

gas  O'Connor  and  tLe  other  Chartists.  Never,  he  says,  in  the 
world  was  there  a  more  total  irremediably  ludicrous  failure  than 
that  operation ;  seldom  a  viler  cowardly  scoundrel  (according  to 

E )  than  that  same  Feargus  as  E there  read  him  ;  and  now 

the  Moral  Force  Chartists  (Lovett,  Coox)er,  &c.)  are  to  come  out 
and — in  short,  the  world,  take  it  how  we  will,  is  mad  enough. 

Not  seeing  his  way  to  a  book  upon  Democracy,  Carlyle 
wrote  a  good  many  newspaper  articles  this  spring  ;  chiefly 
in  the  'Examiner'  and  the  '  Spectator,'  to  deliver  his  sonl. 
Www  Fonblanque  and  Rintonl  (the  editors),  friendly  though 
they  were  to  him,  could  not  allow  him  his  full  swing. 
*  There  is  no  established  journal,'  he  said,  *  that  can  stand 
my  articles,  no  single  one  they  would  not  blow  the  bottom 
out  of.'  More  than  ever  he  wished  to  have  some  period- 
ical of  his  own,  which  would  belong  to  no  party,  and  where 
he  could  hit  out  all  round. 

We  are  going  to  have  sore  times  in  this  country  (he  said),  and 
the  trade  of  governor  will  not  long  be  possible  as  poor  Lord  John 
and  the  like  of  him  are  used  to  manage  it.  Our  streets  even  here 
— what  I  never  saw  before— are  getting  encumbered  with  Irish 
beggars ;  and  in  the  manufacturing  districts,  as  I  hear  from  peo- 
ple on  the  spot,  there  hardly  ever  was  greater  misery.  Something 
does  imperatively  require  to  be  done,  and  I  want  Lord  John  to 
know  that,  or  go  about  his  business  as  soon  as  he  can. 

The  theory  that  the  title  of  governments  in  this  world 
is  *  the  consent  of  the  governed'  will  lead  by-and-by,  if  it 
lasts  loniir  enouMi,  to  verv  curious  conclusions.  As  a  the- 
ory  it  was  held  even  in  1848  by  speculative  Liberal  think- 
ers ;  but  the  old  English  temper  was  still  dominant  when- 
ever there  was  necessity  for  action.  Parliament  was  still 
able  and  willing  to  pass  a  Treason  Felony  Act  through  its 
three  readings  in  one  afternoon,  and  teach  Chartists  alid 
Iri.>li  rebels  that  these  islands  were  not  to  be  swept  into 
the  Revolution.  But  that  spii-it,  Carlyle  saw,  must  abate 
with  the  development  of  Democracy.  The  will  of  the 
people,  shifting  and  uncertain  as  the  weather,  would  make 


S74:  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

an  end  of  autlioritative  action.  And  yet  such  a  govern- 
ment as  lie  desired  to  see  could  be  the  product  only  of 
revolution  of  another  kind.  He  said  often  that  the  Ko- 
man  Republic  was  allowed  so  long  a  day  because  on  emer- 
gencies the  constitution  was  suspended  by  a  dictatorship. 
Dictatorships  might  end  as  they  ended  at  Rome,  in  be- 
coming perpetual — and  to  this  he  would  not  have  objected, 
if  the  right  man  could  be  found  ;  but  he  was  alone  in  his 
opinion,  and  for  the  time  it  w^as  useless  to  speak  of  such  a 
mighty  transformation  scene. 

The  spring  wore  on,  and  the  early  summer  came,  and 
all  eyes  were  watching,  sometimes  France  and  sometimes 
Ireland.  Events  followed  swiftly  in  Paris.  The  govern- 
ment fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Party  of  Order,  the  mod- 
erate Republicans;  and  the  workmen,  who  had  been 
struggling  for  the  '  organization  of  labour,'  determined  to 
fight  for  it.  Out  of  this  came  the  three  tremendous  days 
of.  June,  the  sternest  battle  ever  fought  in  a  modern  city. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  July  7,  1848. 
Doubtless  you  have  been  reading  of  these  awful  explosions  in 
Paris,  which  interest  everybody,  and  are  indeed  an  alarming  symp- 
tom of  the  misery  of  this  poor  time.  To  us  the  most  interesting 
feature  of  all  this  is  this  General  Cavaignac,  who  has  had  the  com- 
mand in  that  terrible  business.  He  is  the  younger  brother  of  the 
Cavaignac  we  loved  much  and  were  very  intimate  with  here,  while 
he  lived.  We  often  heard  of  him  as  a  just  and  valiant  and  every 
way  excellent  man,  whom  his  brother  much  loved  ;  and,  indeed,  I 
believe  him  to  be  really  such  ;  which  kind  of  character  was  cer- 
tainly never  more  wanted  than  in  the  place  he  is  now  in.  Perhaj^s 
Ti<5  man  in  all  the  world  could  have  had  so  cruel  a  duty  laid  upon 
him  as  that  of  cannonading  and  'suppressing  these  wretched  peo- 
ple, whom,  we  may  say,  his  father  and  brother  and  all  his  kindred 
had  devoted  themselves  to  stirring  up  ;  but  he  saw  it  to  be  a  duty^ 
and  he  has  bravely  done  it.  I  suppose  he  will  get  himself  killed 
in  the  business  one  day,  and  indeed  he  ai^peai-s  privately  to.  look 


'"    ■'      Emerson.  375 

for  nothing  else.  His  poor  old  mother  still  lives ;  has  now  no 
child  but  him ;  has  a  strange  history,  indeed,  to  look  back  upon 
from  the  days  of  Robespierre  all  the  way.  It  is  very  curious  to 
me  to  think  how  the  chiefs  of  these  people,  as  Armand  Marrast, 
Clement  Thomas  (late  commander  of  the  National  Guards),  used 
to  sit  and  smoke  a  pipe  with  me  in  this  quiet  nook  some  veal's 
ago  ;  and  now  Louis  Philippe  is  out  and  they  are  in — not  for  ever 
either.  'The  Wheel  of  Fortune,'  as  old  Aunt  Babbie's  dream 
said — *  the  Wheel  of  Fortune,'  *  one  spake  up  and  the  other  spake 
down !  * 

Emerson's  curiosity  had  taken  him  to  Paris  in  May,  to 
see  how  Progress  and  Liberty  were  getting  on.  He  had 
visited  Oxford  also,  wliere  he  had  been  entertained  at 
Oriel  by  my  dear  friend,  xVrtlinr  Clougli.  He  had  break- 
fasted in  Common  Room,  where  several  of  us  wxre  struck 
by  a  likeness  in  his  face  to  that  of  one  once  so  familiar  in 
the  same  spot,  who  had  passed  now  into  another  fold — 
Jolin  Henry  Kewman.  Figure  and  features  were  both 
like  Newman's.  He  was  like  a  gliost  of  Newman  born 
into  a  new  element.  The  Oxford  .visit  over,  Emerson 
went  back  to  London  to- finish  his  lectures.  1  heard  the 
last  of  them  (at  the  Polytechnic,  I  think),  and  tliere  first 
saw  Carlyle,  whom  Clough  pointed  out  to  me.  We  were 
sitting  close  behind  him,  and  I  had  no  sight  of  his  face  ; 
but  I  heard  his  loud,  kindly,  contemptuous  laugh  when  the 
lecturer  ended ;  for,  indeed,  what  Emerson  said  was,  in 
Carlyle's  words,  '  rather  moonshiny.' 

He  was  to  sail  for  Boston  in  the  week  following.  Be- 
fore lie  left,  he  and  Carlyle  went  on  a  small  expedition 
together  into  Wiltshire,  to  look  at  Stonehenge — they  two, 
the  latest  products  o'f  modern  thought,  and  Stonehenge, 
the  silent  monument  of  an  age  all  trace  of  which,  save  that 
one  pircle  of  stone,  has  perished.  Emerson  has  told  the 
story  of  this  adventure  in  his  '  English  Notes.'  Carlyle 
mentions  it  in  his  Journal,  with  a  few  notes  on  other 
things. 


376  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London. 

July  12,  1848. — Went  with  Emerson  on  Fiiday  lUst  vo  see  Stone- 
henge.  Saw  it  in  a  dim  windy  evening,  very  cold,  and  again  on 
the  morrow— windy  sunny  morning ;  a  guide  with  us  this  last 
time.  Trilithons  of  huge  dimensions,  mostly  fallen,  mostly,  in- 
deed, removed  altogether ;  circular  ditch  outside,  and  huge  stone 
sunk  on  the  brow  of  it,  very  visible  :  inside  that,  remains  oi  four 
circles  ;  big  one  lintelled  all  round,  then  a  lower  one  some  six  or 
nine  feet  from  the  former — an  ellipse,  or  egg-shaped,  this  latter 
they  say ;  then  the  biggest  of  all  (separate  trilithes) ;  lastly,  a 
small  inmost  circle  of  thin  little  upright  stones,  six  or  seven  feet 
high,  granite  these  last,  and  from  Devonshire  or  Kildare,  the 
others  being  a  hard  Wiltshire  stone,  seemingly  bastard  limestone. 
Barrows  lie  dumb  all  round,  the  plain  itself  vacant  except  of 
sheep,  and  dumb  even  as  Stone  hang  itself  is.  Nobody  in  the  least 
knows  what,  when,  or  how  it  could  have  been.  Sad,  not  to  say 
almost  dismal,  that  night  as  the  angry  clouds  heaped  themselves 
in  the  wind  :  and  we,  wearied,  bent  homewards  to  our  dismal  inn, 
where  was  tea  and  not  even  milk  with  it,  in  the  ancient  town  of 
Amesbuiy,  sunk  quite  silent  now,  the  great  road  (Exeter  and  Lon- 
don) having  become  a  railway  and  left  it. 

Chartist  concern,  and  Irish  Repeal  concern,  and  French  Republic 
concern  have  all  gone  a  bad  way  since  the  March  entry— April  10 
(immortal  day  already  dead),  day  of  Chartist  monster  petition  ; 
200,000  special  constables  swore  themselves  in,  &c.,  and  Chartism 
came  to  nothing.  Riots  since,  but  the  leaders  all  lodged  in  gaol, 
tried,  imprisoned  for  two  years,  &c.,  and  so  ends  Chartism  for  the 
present.  Irish  Mitchel,  poor  fellow  !  is  now  in  Bermuda  as  a  felon ; 
letter  from  him,  letter  to  him,  letter  to  and  from  Lord  Clarendon — 
was  really  sorry  for  poor  Mitchel.  But  what  help  ?  French  Re- 
public cannonaded  by  General  Cavaignac  ;  a  sad  outlook  there. 
The  windbag  of  Lamartine  quite  burst  in  this  manner — so  many 
windbags  still  bursting  and  to  burst.  Gave  Emerson  a  '  Wood's 
Athense ; '  parted  with  him  in  peace.  A  spiritual  son  of  mine?  Yes, 
in  a  good  degree,  but  gone  into  philanthropy  and  other  moonshine ; 
for  the  rest,  a  dignified,  serene,  and  amiable  man  of  a  certain  in- 
disputable natural  faculty,  whose  friendliness  to  me  in  this  world 
has  been  great. 

The  sun  of  freedom  which  had  risen  so  augnstly  on 
February  24  had  been  swiftly  clouded.  Carlyle  had  not 
expected  definite  good  from  it,  and  ought  not  to  have  been 


Despondency.  377 

disappointed  ;  yet  he  had  not  looked  for  a  collapse  so  swift 
and  so  complete.  He  had  thought  that  something  would 
have  been  gained  for  poor  mankind  from  such  a  break- 
down of  sham  governments.  Europe  had  revolted  against 
them,  but  the  earthquake,  alas !  had  been  transient.  The 
sham  powers,  temporal  and  spiritual,  had  been  shaken  in 
tlieir  seats ;  but  the  shock  passed,  and  they  had  crept  back 
again.  Cant,  insincerity,  imposture,  and  practical  injus- 
tice ruled  once  more  in  the  name  of  order.  He  was  not 
entirely  cast  down.  He  was  still  convinced  that  so  wild  a 
burst  of  passion  must  have  meant  something,  and  the 
*  something '  in  time  would  be  seen  ;  but  the  fog  had  set- 
tled back  thick  as  before,  probably  for  another  long  interval. 
Before  two  years  were  over,  France  saw  Louis  Napoleon 
and  the  Second  Empire,  with  the  Catholic  Church  sup- 
porting. French  bayonets  again  propped  up  the  Pope, 
who,  in  the  strength  of  them,  was  to  declare  himself 
infallible.  England  rested  contented  with  Laissez  faire 
and  the  '  Dismal  Science.'  In  Ireland  were  famine  and 
faniine-fever ;  for  remedy  an  Encumbered  Estates  Act ; 
whole  villages  unroofed  by  fire  or  crowbar ;  two  millions 
of  the  miserable  people  flying  across  the  Atlantic  with 
curses  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  their  mouths;  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  themselves  blessing  Providence  for  ridding  them 
so  cheaply  of  the  Irish  difficulty.  He  saw  clearly  enough 
that  there  was  no  cure  here  for  the  diseases  of  which 
modern  society  was  sick.  Behind  an  order  so  restored 
could  grow  only  the  elements  of  mischief  to  come,  and  he 
was  sickened  at  the  self-satisfied  complaisance  with  which 
the  upper  classes  in  England  and  everywhere  welcomed 
the  victory  of  the  reaction.  The  day  of  reckoning  would 
come  whether  they  believed  it  or  not,  and  the  longer  judg- 
ment was  delayed  the  heavier  it  would  be.  They  had 
another  chance  allowed  them,  that  was  all.  Nor  was  he 
alone  in  such  reflections.    When  the  small  German  poten- 


378  Cariyle's  Life  in  London, 

tates  were  restored  again,  Bunsen  read  at  his  breakfast 
table,  in  my  presence,  a  letter  from  Professor  Dahlmann,  of 
which  I  remember  this  one  sentence  :  '  The  crowned  heads 
have  again  the  power  in  their  hands.  Let  them  look  how 
they  use  it,  oi-  the  next  generation  will  read  the  fate  of 
their  dynasties  on  the  tombstones  of  the  last  kings.' 

What  Carlyle  could  do  or  say  it  was  not  easy  for  him 
to  decide.  No  advice  of  his  would  find  attention  in  the 
existing  humour.  The  turn  which  things  were  taking, 
the  proved  impotence  of  English  Chartism  especially, 
seem  to  justify  the  impatience  with  which  practical  politi- 
cians had  hitherto  listened  to  him.  It  would  be  a  waste 
of  words  to  go  on  denouncing  'shams  'when  'shams' 
every  where  were  receiving  a  new  lease  of  life.  He  stayed 
in  London  through  the  summer,  Mrs.  Carlyle  with  him, 
but  doing  nothing.     On  August  10  he  writes : — 

May  I  mark  this  as  the  nadir  of  my  sphitual  course  at  present  ? 
Never  till  now  was  I  so  low — utterly  dumb  this  long  while,  barren, 
undecided,  wretched  in  mind.  My  right  hand  has  altogether  lost 
its  cunning.  Alas  !  and  I  have  nothing  other  wherewith  to  de- 
fend myself  against  the  world  without,  and  keep  it  from  over- 
whelming me,  as  it  often  threatens  to  do.  Many  things  close  at 
hand  are  other  than  happy  for  me  just  now  ;  but  that  is  no  excuse. 
If  my  own  energy  desert  me,  I  am  indeed  deserted.  .  .  .  The 
most  popular  character  a  man  can  have  is  that  which  he  acquires 
by  being  offensive  to  nobody,  soft  and  agreeable  to  everybody. 
All  men  will  cordially  praise  him,  and  even  in  some  measure  love 
him  if  so.  A  fact  worth  some  reflection  :  a  fact  which  puts  the 
popular  judgment  out  of  court,  in  individual  moral  matters.  Peo- 
ple praise  or  blame  according  as  they  themselves  have  fared  softly 
or  fared  hardly  in  their  intercourse  with  a  man.  And  now  who 
are  '  they '  ?  Cowardly  egoists,  greedy  slaves ;  servants  of  the 
Devil,  for  most  part.  Woe  unto  you  if  you  treat  them  softly,  if 
they  fare  well  with  you  !  Oliver  Cromwell,  for  doing  more  of 
God's  will  than  any  man,  has  to  lie  under  the  curses  of  all  men  for 
200  years.     Consider  and  remember. 

In  all  humours,  light  or  heavy,  lie  could  count  on  the 
unshaken  affection  of  his  friends  the  Barings.     A  change 


Thi  Grange,  379 

in  this  last  year  had  passed  over  their  worldly  sitnation. 
The  old  Lord  had  died  in  May,  and  Mr.  Baring  was  now 
Lord  Asli burton. 

He  is  a  very  worthy  man  (Carlyle  wrote  when  the  event  hap- 
pened), a  very  worthy  man,  as  his  father  was,  and  I  hope  will  do 
good  in  his  day  and  generation,  as  at  least  he  has  a  real  desire  to 
do.  He  is  now  immensely  rich,  but  having  no  children,  and  for 
himself  no  silly  vanity,  I  believe  does  not  in  the  least  rejoice  at 
such  a  lot.  Poor  fellow  !  He  looked  miserably  ill  the  day  I 
called  on  him  after  his  return  from  the  sad  scene  ;  and  though  we 
did  not  si^eak  of  that,  I  found  him  thin  and  pale,  and  the  picture 
of  a  sorrow  which  well  became  him.  One  could  not  but  ask  one- 
self again,  thinking  of  60,000/.  a  year,  'Alas!  what  is  the  use  of 
it?' 

In  September  there  was  to  be  a  great  gathering  of  dis- 
tinguished persons  at  the  Grange  under  its  new  ownership, 
and  the  Carlyles,  as  this  year  he  had  not  gone  to  Scotland, 
were  invited  for  a  long  autumn  visit.  He  hesitated  to 
join  the  brilliant  circle,  lie  had  '  proved  by  experience 
that  Marquises  and  Ministers  did  not  differ  from  little 
people,  except  in  the  clothing  and  mounting.'  He  went, 
however,  and  his  wife  went  with  him.  As  usual,  he  kept 
his  mother  well  informed  of  his  condition. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotsbrig. 

The  Grange  :  September  3,  1848. 
The  first  night  I  did  not  sleep.  It  was  a  strange  thing  to  lie 
thinking  of  you  all  in  the  deep  night  here,  and  have  Scotsbrig  and 
the  ever  dear  ones  there  all  present  in  a  place  so  foreign  to  them. 
Last  night,  however,  I  made  a  fair  sleep,  and  to-day  feel  wonder- 
fully well.  I  look  out  of  my  two  big  windows  here  (which  are 
generally  flung  up)  northward  into  deep  masses  of  wood  witli 
avenues  and  greensward,  all  in  beautiful  sunshine  and  solitude ; 
and  silent,  except  for  the  twittering  of  some  birds,  and,  occasion- 
ally, the  caw  of  some  distant  rooks  not  yet  quite  fallen  dumb.  I 
could  sit  whole  hours,  if  they  would  let  me  alone,  and  converse 
only  with  my  own  confused  thoughts,  and  tiy  to  let  them  settle  a 
little  within  me.    .    .     .    Chaiies  Buller  is  here— a  very  cheerful 


380  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

man  to  have  beside  one.  The  Lady's  mother  (the  widow  Lady 
Sandwich)  is  the  only  woman  visitor  except  Jane.  Lady  Sandwich 
used  to  live  always  in  Paris,  till  she  was  driven  home  by  the  late 
revolution;  a  brisk,  talking,  friendly,  and  rather  entertaining 
character  ;  has  been  very  beautiful  at  one  time.  She  has  no  other 
daughters  left  but  this,  and  no  son  but  one  ;  plenty  of  money,  and 
fair  health  ;  but,  alas  !  Nothing  to  do.  That  is  not  a  very  easy  life 
after  all.  For  the  present,  too,  we  have  a  store  of  other  Lords — • 
Lansdowne,  Auckland,  Granville,  with  one  or  two  official  com- 
moners. Alas  !  as  Stephenson  the  engineer  said,  and  as  I  often  say, 
*  if  it  were  not  for  the  clothes,  there  would  be  little  difference.' 
To  say  truth,  I  wish  we  were  well  home  again ;  and  yet  I  suppose 
it  is  useful  to  come  abroad  into  such  foreign  circles  now  and  then. 
Persons  so  very  kind  to  us  are  not  lightly  to  be  refused. 

To  bis  brother  he  wrote  also. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

The  Grange  :  September  11,  1848. 

As  for  one's  life  in  this  grand  mansion,  it  is  one  of  total  idleness, 
and  has  in  it  scarcely  anything  one  can  call  an  event,  even  for  a 
penny  letter.  It  is  a  sumptuous  elaborate  representation^  which 
has  to  be  transacted  seemingly  for  its  own  sake  :  no  result  attained 
by  it,  or  hardly  any,  except  the  representation  itself.  To  one  like 
me,  it  would  be  frightful  to  live  on  such  terms.  We  rise  about 
eight.  A  valet,  who  waits  here,  is  charged  not  to  disturb  me  till 
half-past  eight ;  but  he  comes  whenever  I  ring,  and  that  is  almost 
always  before  the  ultimate  limit  of  time.  Shaving,  bathing,  dress- 
ing, all  deliberately  done,  last  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  I  have 
an  excellent  and  aiiy  room,  two  rooms,  if  I  needed,  with  three  win- 
dows looking  out  into  the  woods  and  lawns,  which  are  very  pretty ; 
a  large  old-fashioned  bed  with  curtains,  which  latter  is  a  rare  bless- 
ing ;  and  a  degree  of  quietness  which  cannot  be  surpassed.  Were 
it  not  for  the  unwholesome  diet,  which  I  try  to  mend  and  manage, 
one  might  sleep  to  perfection  here.  Sleep,  in  fact,  is  one's  best 
employment  at  present.  Before  nine  we  are  out,  most  of  us,  I 
eastward  into  a  big  portico  that  looks  over  lake  and  hillside  to- 
wards the  rising  sun,  where  among  the  bushes  I  have  a  pipe  lodged, 
which  I  light  and  smoke,  sauntering  up  and  down,  joined  by  Jane 
if  she  can  manage  it,  much  to  my  satisfaction.  Jane  lodges  some 
doors  from  me,  also  in  two  pretty  rooms.  Breakfast  is  at  half -past 
nine,  where  are  infinite  flunkeys,  cates,  condiments — very  super- 


The  Orange  381 

fluons  to  me,  with  much  '  making  of  wits,'  and  not  always  a  very 
great  allowance  of  gmve  reason.  That  ends  in  about  an  hour. 
From  that  till  two,  I  continue  trying  to  keep  private  to  my  own 
room,  but  do  not  always  succeed.  To  go  down  into  the  drawing- 
room  is  to  get  into  the  general  whirl.  After  luncheon,  all  go  for 
exercise,  the  women  to  drive,  the  men  to  ride. 

The  tide  of  guests  ebbed  and  flowed  and  ebbed  again  ; 
occasionally  even  the  host  and  hostess  were  absent  for  a 
day  or  two,  and  the  Carlyles  were  left  alone  Mn  the  vast 
establishment,'  as  *in  some  Hall  of  the  Past,'  with  horses, 
carriages,  and  all  at  their  disposal.  '  Strange  quarters  for 
the  like  of  them ! '  he  observed.  He  would  not  waste  his 
time  entirely,  and  used  it  to  study  the  habits  of  the  Hamp- 
shire peasantry,  to  amuse  his  mother  with  an  account  of 
them. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

The  Grange :  September  29,  1848. 

The  people  here  seem  to  me  much  less  hardworked  than  in  the 
North.  They  are  very  ill  off,  I  believe,  if  their  landlords  did  not 
help  them  ;  but  seem  to  require  much  more  to  make  them  icell  off 
than  Scotch  people  do.  Their  cottages  are  mostly  very  clean,  with 
trees  about  them,  flower-bushes  into  the  very  windows,  and  a 
trim  road,  paved  with  bricks,  leading  out  from  them  to  the  puhlic 
way.  The  ploughmen,  or  farm-servants  generally,  go  about  girt 
in  buckskin  leggings  from  toe  to  midthigh,  *  gey  firm  about  the 
feet ; '  rags  are  seen  nowhere  ;  nor,  I  suppose,  does  want  anywhere 
do  other  than  come  upon  the  parish  and  have  itself  supplied.  The 
gentry,  I  imagine,  take  a  great  deal  more  pains  with  their  depend- 
ents than  ours  do.  For  the  rest,  the  tillage  is  all  more  or  less 
sluttish,  thistles  abounding,  turnips  sown  broadcast,  bad  fences, 
abimdance  of  waste  ground,  and,  in  particular,  such  a  quantity  of 
roads  and  foot  and  bridle  paths  as  fills  a  Scotchman  with  astonish- 
ment. I  do  believe  there  is  something  like  ten  times  as  much 
ground  occupied  that  way  as  there  is  with  us.  Nay,  it  seems  vir- 
tually the  rule,  which  I  now  act  upon  like  the  others,  that  you  can 
r'tde  in  any  direction  whatsoever  at  your  own  pleasure,  and  nobody 
dreams  of  finding  fault  with  you.  There  are  walks  and  rides, 
green  and  red,  I  think  twenty  miles  long,  in  the  paik,  and  solitary 
as  if  yoQ  were  in  the  heart  of  America. 


382  Carlyle-s  Life  in  London. 

The  motive  which  tempted  Carljle  to  linger  so  long  in 
these  scenes  and  return  so  often  to  them,  is  not  very  easy 
to  find.  It  vi^as  certainly  not  tlie  honour  of  the  thing. 
He  had  a  genuine  regard  for  the  Barings,  and  was  in- 
debted to  them  for  a  good  deal  of  kindness ;  but  neither 
regard  nor  gratitude  required  so  constant  a  sacrifice.  It 
was  not  pleasure,  as  is  shown  by  the  notes  which  were  en- 
tered in  his  Journal. 

October  16. — Eeturned  Thursday  gone  a  week  from  a  long  visit 
(five  weeks  all  but  a  day)  to  the  Grange.  Plenty  of  high  company 
there,  coming  and  going ;  friendliness  of  all  and  sundry  to  us  ex- 
treme. Feelings,  nevertheless,  altogether  unfortunate,  generally 
painful,  and  requiring  to  be  kept  silent.  Idle  I  throughout  as  a 
dry  bone ;  never  spent  five  lonelier,  idler  weeks.  If  not  in  their 
loneliness,  there  was  no  good  in  them  at  all.  But  it  was  notable 
what  strange  old  reminiscences  and  secret  elegiac  thoughts  of  vari- 
ous kinds  went  on  within  me  ;  wild  and  wondrous  ;  from  my  ear- 
liest days  even  till  then,  in  that  new  foreign  element  I  had  got 
into.  Nor  is  there  any  ivork  yet.  Ah  !  no  !  none  !  What  will  be- 
come of  me  ?  I  am  growing  old  ;  I  am  grown  old.  My  next 
book  must  be  that  of  an  old  man,  and  I  am  not  yet  got  into  that 
dialect.  Again  and  again  I  ask  myself  :  Wilt  thou  never  work 
more  then  ?  and  the  answer  is  a  mere  groan  of  misery,  and  also 
of  cowardliness  and  laziness.  Heaven  help  me  !  But  how  can  it 
when  I  do  not  help  myself  ? 

He  was  trying  to  write  something.  He  says  in  a  letter 
at  this  time  '  that  he  was  doing  a  little  every  day,  tliough 
to  small  purpose.'  In  the  way  of  visible  occupation  I  find 
oidy  that  he  was  reading  Fichte,  with  small  satisfaction, 
the  '  Ich  '  and  '  Niclit  Icli '  '  proving  shadowy  concerns.' 
John  Carlyle  amused  him  with  a  story  of  his  mother, 
whose  mode  of  treating  impertinence  seems  to  have  been 
not  unlike  her  son's. 

Jack  made  us  merry  last  night  (he  wrote  to  her  in  November) 
with  that  flat-soled  hero -worshipper  and  your  reception  of  him. 
*  The  mother  of  Thomas  Carlyle  ? '  'Yes.'  'Born  where?'  '  Ec- 
clefechan.'     He  said  no  fastidious  duchess  could  have  done  the 


Death  of  Charles  Buller.  383 

poor  blockhead  better  than  you  by  the  simple  force  of  nature  and 
practical  desire  to  get  rid  of  idle  babble.  Such  people  often 
enough  come  staggering  about  in  here,  and  require  to  be  managed 
in  somewhat  the  same  way. 

Charles  Buller  had  been  at  tlie  party  at  the  Grange, 
brilliant  as  usual.  In  this  winter  he  suddenly  died  through 
the  blundering  of  an  unskilful  surgeon.  Buller  was  one 
of  the  few  real  friends  that  Carlyle  had  left  in  the  world, 
and  was  cut  off  in  this  sudden  way  just  when  the  liighest 
political  distinctions  were  coming  within  his  reach.  His 
witty  Iiumour  had  for  a  time  made  his  prospects  doubtful. 
The  House  of  Commons  likes  to  be  amused,  but  does  not 
raise  its  jesters  into  Cabinets.  Buller  said  he  owed  his 
success  to  Peel.  He  had  been  going  on  in  his  usual  way 
one  night  when  Peel  said,  *If  the  honourable  member  for 
Liskeard  will  cease  for  a  moment  from  making  a  buffoon 
of  himself,  I  will,  &c.'  For  these  sharp  words  Buller  was 
for  ever  grateful  to  Peel.  He  achieved  afterwards  the 
highest  kind  of  Parliamentary  reputation.  A  great  career 
had  opened  before  liim,  and  now  it  was  ended.  Carlyle 
felt  his  loss  deeply.  He  wrote  a  most  beautiful  elegy, 
which  was  published  in  the  '  Examiner '  in  time  for  Bul- 
ler's  poor  mother  to  read  it.  Then  she  died,  too,  of  pure 
grief.  Her  husband  had  gone  before,  and  the  family  with 
whom  Carlyle  had  once  been  so  intimately  connected  came 
to  an  end  together.     It  was  a  sad  season  altogether. 

JouTYiah 

December  14,  1848. — Surely  a  time  will  come  for  me  once  more! 
I  understand  this  long  while  what  the  old  romancers  meant  by  a 
knight  being  enchanted.  That  is  precisely  my  own  condition — 
unable  to  stir  myself,  writhing  with  hand  and  foot  glued  together, 
under  a  load  of  contemptible  miseries.  Often,  very  often,  I  think, 
*  Would  the  human  species  universally  be  but  so  kind  as  to  leave 
me  altogether  alone  ! '  I  mean  to  hurt  nobody,  I ;  and  the  hurt 
that  others  (involuntarily  for  most  part)  do  me  is  incalculable.  But 
these  are  shallow  impatiences.    The  thought  is  froword  and  an- 


884  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

just.  The  good  souls  that  still  love  me,  even  while  they  hurt  and 
distress  me,  can  I  wish  them  deliberately  away  from  me  ?  No, 
never !  The  fault,  I  discern,  always  will  at  length  be  found  my 
own. 

In  certain  conditions  of  bodily  health  the  daintiest  food 
is  nauseous.  It  is  the  same,  or  nearly  so,  with  the  mind  ; 
and  tliis  perhaps  may  explain  the  impatient  passage  which 
follows.  Yet  he  must  have  read  again  what  he  had  writ- 
ten, and  had  not  erased  the  words,  which  must  be  sup- 
posed therefore  to  represent  his  real  opinion. 

December  29,  1848. — It  seems  as  if  all  things  were  combining 
against  me  to  hinder  any  book  or  free  deliverance  of  myself  I 
might  have  in  view  at  present.  We  shall  see.  Milnes  has  written 
this  year  a  book  on  Keats.  This  remark  to  make  on  it:  'An  at- 
tempt to  make  us  eat  dead  dog  by  exquisite  currying  and  cooking.' 
Won't  eat  it.  A  truly  unwise  little  book.  The  kind  of  man  that 
Keats  was  gets  ever  more  horrible  to  me.  Force  of  hunger  for 
pleasure  of  every  kind,  and  want  of  all  other  force — that  is  a  com- 
bination !  Such  a  structure  of  soul,  it  would  once  have  been  very 
evident,  was  a  chosen  '  Vessel  of  Hell ; '  and  truly,  for  ever  there  is 
justice  in  that  feeling.  At  present  we  try  to  love  and  pity,  and 
even  worship,  such  a  soul,  and  find  the  task  rather  easy,  in  our 
own  souls  there  being  enough  of  similarity.  Away  with  it !  There 
is  perhaps  no  clearer  evidence  of  our  universal  immorality  and 
cowardly  untruth  than  even  in  such  sympathies. 

The  winter  went  by  with  no  work  accomplished  or  be- 
gun, beyond  the  revising  '  Cromwell '  for  a  third  edition, 
as  it  was  still  selling  rapidly.  '  I  find  the  book  is  well 
liked,'  he  could  say,  '  and  silently  making  its  way  into  the 
heart  of  the  country,  which  is  a  result  I  am  very  thankful 
for.' 

The  book  had  been  too  well  liked,  indeed ;  for  it  had 
created  a  set  of  enthusiastic  admirers  who  wanted  now  to 
have  a  statue  of  the  great  Protector,  or,  at  least,  some  pub- 
lic memorial  of  him.  Carlyle  was  of  Cato's  opinion  in  that 
matter.  He  preferred  that  men  should  rather  ask  where 
Oliver's  statue  was  than  see  it  as  one  of  the  anomalous 


CromwelVs  Statue,  385 

images  which  are  scattered  over  the  metropolis.    He  was 
asked  to  give  liis  sanction. 

The  people  (he  wi'ote  to  his  mother)  having  subscribed  25,000/. 
for  a  memorial  to  an  ugly  bullock  of  a  Hudson,  who  did  not  even 
pretend  to  have  any  merit  except  that  of  being  suddenly  rich,  and 
who  is  now  discovered  to  be  little  other  than  at  heart  a  horse- 
coper  and  dishonest  fellow,  I  think  they  ought  to  leave  Cromwell 
alone  of  their  memorials,  and  try  to  honour  him  in  some  more 
profitable  way — by  learning  to  be  honest  men  like  him,  for  ex- 
ample. But  we  shall  see  what  comes  of  all  this  Cromwell  work — 
a  thing  not  without  value  either. 

When  he  was  least  occupied  his  I^otebook  is  fullest, 
tlirowhig  light  into  the  inmost  parts  of  him. 

Journal. 

April  26,  1849. — Little  done  hitherto — nothing  definite  done  at 
all.  What  other  book  will  follow  ?  That  is  ever  the  question, 
and  hitherto  the  unanswered  one.  Silent  hitherto,  not  from  hav- 
ing nothing  to  say,  but  from  having  aW— a  whole  world  to  say  at 
once.  I  am  weak  too — forlorn,  bewildered,  and  nigh  lost — too 
weak  for  my  place,  I  too.  Article  in  the  '  Spectator '  about  Peel 
and  Ireland;  veiy  cruel  upon  Russell,  commanding  him  to  get 
about  his  business  for  ever.  Was  written  very  ill,  but  really  to 
satisfy  my  conscience  in  some  measure.  .  .  .  My  voice  sounds 
to  me  like  a  One  Voice  in  the  world,  too  frightful  to  me,  with  a 
heart  so  sick  and  a  head  growing  grey  !  I  say  often  Was  thuCs  ? 
Be  silent  then  !  all  which  I  know  is  very  weak.  Louis  Blanc  was 
twice  here — a  pretty  little  miniature  of  a  man,  well  shaped,  long 
black  head,  brown  skin  ;  every  way  French  aspect :  quick,  twink- 
ling, earnest  black  eyes ;  a  smallish,  melodious  voice,  whicli 
rather  quavers  in  its  tones  ;  free,  lively,  ingenious  utterance,  full 
of  friendliness,  transparency,  logical  definiteness,  and  seeming 
good  faith ;  not  mucli  vanity  either ;  a  good  little  creature,  to 
whom,  deeply  as  I  dissented  from  him,  I  could  not  help  wishing 
heartily  well.  '  Literary  world  '  (bless  the  mark  !)  much  occupied 
of  late  with  *  Macau  lay's  History,'  the  most  popular  history  book 
ever  wiitten.  Fourth  edition  already,  within,  perhaps,  four 
months.  Book  to  which  four  hundred  editions  could  not  lend  any 
permanent  value,  there  being  no  depth  of  sense  in  it  at  all,  and  a 
Vol.  hi.— 25 


3S6  Cadyle's  Life  in  London. 

very  great  quantity  of  rhetorical  wind  and  other  temporary  ingredi- 
ents, which  are  the  reverse  of  sense. 

Pio  Norio  was  not  yet  upon  his  throne  again.  Rome 
was  held  by  the  Triumvirs — Mazzini  in  brief  triumph,  and 
unable  to  believe  that  the  glories  of  1848  were  absolutely 
to  disappear.  In  Kome  and  Hungary  the  revolution  was 
still  struggling,  though  to  most  eyes  the  inevitable  end 
liad  long  been  apparent.  Carlyle  had  loved  Mazzini  well, 
but  had  never  believed  in  him.  He  was  now  watching  his 
fortunes  with  anxious  interest.  His  mother,  he  knew, 
would  be  pleased  to  hear  of  any  brave  man  in  death- 
grapple  with  the  old  Antichrist. 

To  Margai-et  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  May,  1849. 
Yesterday  there  came  a  certain  Italian  political  character,  one 
Marioni,  who  has  come  hither  from  Kome  to  negotiate  about  the 
poor  Eoman  Eepublic  and  its  many  troubles.  Mazzini  had  given 
him  a  card  for  Jane.  I  talked  a  long  time  with  him  ;  found  him  a 
rational,  sincere-looking  man.  All  people,  he  says,  are  clear 
against  readmitting  the  Pope  to  temporal  rule  at  Rome,  and  will 
fight  violently  before  they  be  constrained  to  it.  Nobody  knows 
which  way  the  French  and  others  will  settle  that  beggarly  bank- 
ruptcy of  impotence.  To  settle  it  well  will  exceed  the  power  of  all 
of  them  united,  I  believe.  Mazzini,  an  old  friend  of  ours,  and 
one  of  the  most  zealous,  pious-minded  men  I  know,  is  one  of  the 
three  Kings  of  Rome  just  now,  and  I  suppose  is  the  most  resolute 
of  them  all.  He  lives  in  the  Pope's  palace  at  present.  The  other 
day  he  was  in  a  x:)Oor  house  somewhere  here,  which  seems  a  change 
when  one  reflects  on  it.  Louis  Napoleon,  too,  I  have  often  seen 
in  these  streets  driving  his  cabriolet ;  once  I  dined  where  he  was, 
and  talked  a  good  deal  to  him — no  great  promotion  for  a  man  at 
that  time.  Alas !  it  is  conjectured,  too,  that  such  a  time  may  very 
easily  return  ;  that  Louis  Napoleon  is  veiy  likely  to  drive  cabrio- 
lets here  again,  x^oor  fellow  !  The  world  is  grown  a  much  madder 
place  than  it  ever  was  before.  In  fact,  ruin  has  come  upon  all 
manner  of  supremely  deceptive  persons.  The  day  of  trouble  for 
supreme  quacks  everywhere  has  arrived  ;  for  which  should  we  not 
^11  thank  the  Righteous  Judge  ? 


Mazzini  in  Rome.  38T 

Journal. 
May  17,  1849. — Mazzini  busy  at  Rome  resisting  the  French,  re- 
sisting all  i)eople  that  attack  his  *  Kepubblica  Romana,'  standing 
on  his  guard  against  all  the  world.  Poor  Mazzini !  If  he  could 
stand  there  in  Rome,  in  sight  of  all  Italy,  and  practically  defy  the 
whole  world  for  a  while,  and  fight  till  Rome  was  ashes  and  ruin, 
and  end  by  blowing  himself  and  his  assailants  up  in  the  last  strong 
post,  and  so  yielding  only  with  life,  he  might  rouse  the  whole 
Italian  nation  into  such  a  rage  as  it  has  not  known  for  many  cen- 
turies ;  and  this  might  be  the  means  of  shaking  out  of  the  Italian 
mind  a  very  foul  precipitate  indeed.  Perhaps  that  is  really  what 
he  was  worth  in  this  world.  Sti-ange,  providential-looking,  and 
leading  to  many  thoughts — how,  of  all  the  immense  nonsense  that 
lay  in  this  brave  man,  the  one  element  of  noble  perennial  truth 
that  pervaded  him  wholly  withal  is  at  length  laid  hold  of  by  the 
upper  powers  of  this  universe,  and  tui'ned  to  the  use  that  was  in  it. 
Whatsoever  good  we  have,  the  gods  know  it  well,  and  will  know 
what  to  make  of  it  in  due  season.  Mazzini  came  much  about  us 
here  for  many  years,  patronised  by  my  wife ;  to  me  veiy  weari- 
some, with  his  incoherent  Jacobinisms,  George-Sandisms,  in  sjDite 
of  all  my  love  and  regard  for  him  ;  a  beautiful  little  man,  full  of 
sensibilities,  of  melodies,  of  clear  intelligence,  and  noble  virtues. 
He  had  found  Volney,  «fec.,  in  a  drawer  in  his  father's  librarj^  while 
a  boy,  and  had  read  and  read,  recognising  a  whole  new  promised 
land  illuminated  with  suns  and  volcanoes.  Father  was  a  physician 
in  Genoa.  He,  forced  to  be  a  lawyer,  turned  himself  into  Young 
Italy,  and,  after  many  sad  adventures,  is  there.  What  -w'lU  become 
of  him  ?  we  ask  daily  with  a  real  interest.  A  small,  square-headed, 
bright-eyed,  swift,  yet  still,  Ligurian  figure  ;  beautiful,  and  mer- 
ciful, and  fierce ;  as  pretty  a  little  man  when  I  first  saw  him,  eight 
or  nine  years  ago,  as  had  ever  come  before  me.  Time  as  steel,  the 
word  the  thought  of  him  pure  and  limpid  as  water  ;  by  nature  a 
little  lyrical  poet ;  plenty  of  quiet  fun  in  him,  too,  and  wild  emo- 
tion, rising  to  the  shrill  key,  with  all  that  lies  between  these  two 
extremes.  His  trade,  however,  was  not  to  write  verses.  Shall  we 
ever  see  him  more  ? 

Under  the  same  date  in  the  Journal  also  is  a  notice  of  a 
contrasting  figure — one  of  whom,  as  long  as  he  had  been 
successful,  the  English  world  had  thought  as  well  as  it 
had  thought  ill  of  poor  Mazzini. 


388  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

King  Hudson  flung  utterly  prostrate,  detected  '  cooking  ac- 
counts ; '  everybody  kicking  him  through  the  mire.  To  me  and 
to  quiet  onlookers  he  has  not  changed  at  all.  He  is  merely  de- 
tected to  me  what  we  always  understood  he  was.  The  rage  of  fel- 
low-gamblers, now  when  he  has  merely  lost  the  game  for  them, 
and  ceased  to  swindle  with  impunity,  seems  to  us  a  very  baseless 
thing.  One  sordid,  hungry  canaille  are  they  all.  Why  should  this, 
the  chief  terrier  among  them,  be  set  upon  by  all  the  dog  frater- 
nity ?  One  feels  a  real  human  pity  for  the  ugly  Hudson.  T.  Sped- 
ding  the  other  night  was  describing  to  us  the  late  figure  of  H.  's 
private  life,  as  S.  himself  and  others  had  observed  it.  Over- 
whelmed with  business,  yet  superadding  to  it  ostentatious  and 
high-flown  amusements,  balls  at  great  country  houses  fifty  miles 
ofi",  &c. ,  &c.  With  early  morning  he  was  gone  from  Newby  Park, 
and  his  guests  off  by  express  trains  over  all  the  island  ;  returned 
weary  on  the  edge  of  dinner,  then  first  met  his  guests,  drank 
largely  of  champagne,  with  other  wines ;  *  ate  nothing  at  all, 
hardly  an  ounce  of  solid  food ; '  then  tumbled  into  bed,  worn  out 
with  business  and  madness.  That  was  the  late  daily  history  of  the 
man.  Oh,  Mammon  !  art  thou  not  a  hard  god  ?  It  is  now  doubt- 
ful whether  poor  Hudson  will  even  have  any  money  left.  Perhaps 
that  would  be  a  real  benefit  to  him.  His  brother-in-law  has 
drowned  himself  at  York.  What  a  world  this  ever  is  !  full  of  Ne- 
mesis, ruled  by  the  Supernal,  rebelled  in  by  the  Infernal,  with 
prophetic  tragedies  as  of  old.  Murderer  Eush,  Jermy's  natural 
brother !  To  pious  men,  he  too  might  have  seemed  one  of  the 
fated.  No  son  of  Atreus  had  more  authentically  a  doom  of  the 
gods.  The  old  laws  are  still  alive.  Even  railway  scrip  is  subject 
to  them. 

Ireland,  of  all  the  topics  on  which  he  had  meditated 
writing,  remained  painfully  fascinating.  He  had  looked 
at  the  beggarly  scene,  he  had  seen  the  blighted  fields,  the 
ragged  misery  of  the  wretched  race  who  were  suffering  for 
others'  sins  as  well  as  for  their  own.  Since  that  brief  visit 
of  his  the  famine  had  been  followed  by  the  famine-fever, 
and  the  flight  of  millions  from  a  land  which  was  smitten 
with  a  curse.  Those  ardent  young  men  with  whom  he 
had  dined  at  Dun  drum  were  working  as  felons  in  the  docks 
at  Bermuda.     Ga van  Duffy,  after  a  near  escape  from  the 


Ireland.  389 

same  fate,  had  been  a  guest  in  Clieyne  Row  ;  and  the 
story  which  he  had  to  tell  of  cabins  torn  down  by  crow- 
bars, and  shivering  families,  turned  out  of  their  miserable 
homes,  dying  in  tlie  ditches  by  the  roadside,  had  touched 
Carlyle  to  the  very  heart.  He  was  furious  at  the  econom- 
ical commonplaces  with  wJiich  England  was  consoling 
itself.  He  regarded  Ireland  as  '  the  breaking-point  of  the 
huge  suppuration  which  all  British  and  all  European 
society  then  was.'  He  determined  to  see  it  again,  look  at 
it  further  and  more  fully,  ^  that  ragged  body  of  a  diseased 
soul,'  and  then  write  something  about  it  which  might  move 
his  country  into  a  better  sense  of  its  obligations.  So  earn- 
est he  was  that  he  struggled  seriously  to  find  some  plainer 
form  of  speech,  better  suited  to  the  world's  comprehen- 
sion, which  they  might  read,  not  to  wonder  at,  but  to  take 
to  their  hearts  for  practical  guidance. 

Often  in  my  sleep  (he  says)  I  have  made  long  passages  and 
screeds  of  composition  in  the  most  excellent  approved  common- 
place style.  I  wish  I  could  do  it  awake  ;  I  could  then  write  many 
things — fill  all  newspapers  with  my  writing.  The  di-eam  seems  to 
say  the  talent  is  in  me,  as  I  suppose  it  sure  enough  to  be ;  but  the 
hnack  is  wanting,  and  will  perhaps  for  ever  be.  All  talents,  spe- 
cific aptitudes  of  a  handicraft — nay,  worse,  all  outlines  of  learning 
(so  called),  which  I  once  had  are  gradually  melting  into  the  vague, 
and  threatening  to  leave  me — a  wild  sea  surely,  and  a  lonesome 
voyage  surely  I  'ware  ahead ! 

To  Margaret  CarlyUy  Scotsbrig. 

Chelsea  :  May  26,  1849. 
We  have  beautiful  wann  weather  now ;  we  are  tolerably  well  in 
health,  too,  all  of  us.  Both  Jane  and  I  go  grumbling  on  as  usual, 
not  worse  than  usual.  I  am  thinking  mther  seriously  of  getting 
out  into  the  country  as  soon  as  the  weather  grows  too  hot.  A 
tour  of  a  week  or  two  in  Ireland  has  often  been  in  my  head  of  late ; 
some  kind  of  tour  which  would  take  me  away  from  the  noise  of 
this  Babylon  while  the  pavements  are  so  hot  and  so  crowded. 
.  .  .  I  do  not  expect  to  find  much  new  knowledge  in  Ireland 
if  I  go ;  but  much  that  I  have  lying  in  me  to  say  might  perhaps 


390  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

get  nearer  to  some  way  of  utterance  if  I  were  looking  face  to  face 
upon  the  niin  and  wretchedness  that  is  prevalent  there  ;  for  that 
seems  to  me  the  spot  in  our  dominions  where  the  bottomless  gulf 
has  broken  out,  and  all  the  lies  and  delusions  that  lie  hidden  and 
open  in  us  have  come  to  this  definite  and  practical  issue  there. 
'  They  that  sow  the  wind,  they  shall  reap  the  whirlwind ; '  that 
was  from  of  old  the  law. 

It  was  while  Carlyle  was  preparing  for  this  Irish  tour 
that  I  myself  became  first  personally  acquainted  with  him. 
lie  had  heard  of  me  from  Arthur  Clough,  who  left  Oxford 
when  I  left  it.  We  had  felt,  both  of  us,  that,  thinking  as 
we  did,  we  were  out  of  place  in  an  Article-signing  Uni- 
versity, and  we  had  resigned  our  Fellowships.  Of  Clough 
Carlyle  had  formed  the  very  highest  opinion,  as  no  one 
who  knew  him  could  fail  to  do.  His  pure  beautiful  char- 
acter, his  genial  humour,  his  perfect  truthfulness,  alike  of 
heart  and  intellect — an  integrity  which  had  led  him  to 
sacrifice  a  distinguished  position  and  brilliant  prospects, 
and  had  brought  him  to  London  to  gather  a  living  as  he 
could  from  under  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  in  the  streets — 
these  together  had  recommended  Clough  to  Carlyle  as  a 
diamond  sifted  out  of  the  general  rubbish-heap.  Of  me, 
with  good  reason,  he  was  inclined  to  think  far  less  favour- 
ably. I  had  written  something,  not  wisely,  in  which 
heterodoxy  was  flavoured  with  the  sentimentalism  which 
he  so  intensely  detested.  He  had  said  of  me  that  I  ought 
to  burn  my  own  smoke,  and  not  trouble  other  people's 
nostrils  with  it.  ^Nevertheless,  he  was  willing  to  see  what 
I  was  like.  James  Spedding  took  me  down  to  Cheyne 
Row  one  evening  in  the  middle  of  June.  We  found  him 
sitting  after  dinner,  with  his  pipe,  in  the  small  flagged 
court  between  the  house  and  the  garden.  He  was  study- 
ing without  much  satisfaction  the  Life  of  St.  Patrick  by 
Jocelyn  of  Ferns  in  the  '  Acta  Sanctorum.'  He  was  try- 
ing to  form  a  notion  of  what  Ireland  had  been  like  before 


Irvbroduction  to  Carlyle.  391 

Danes  or  Saxons  had  meddled  with  it,  when  it  was  said  to 
have  been  the  chosen  home  of  learning  and  piety,  and  had 
sent  out  ipissionaries  to  convert  Northern  Europe.  His 
author  was  not  assisting  hhn.  The  life  of  St.  Patrick  as 
given  by  Jocelyn  is  as  much  a  biography  of  a  real  man  as 
the  story  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer.  When  we  arrived 
Carlyle  had  just  been  reading  how  an  Irish  marauder  had 
stolen  a  goat  and  eaten  it,  and  the  Saint  had  convicted 
him  by  making  the  goat  bleat  in  his  stomach.  He  spoke 
of  it  with  rough  disgust ;  and  then  we  talked  of  Ireland 
generally,  of  which  I  had  some  local  knowledge. 

He  was  then  fifty-four  years  old ;  tall  (about  five  feet 
eleven),  thin,  but  at  that  time  upright,  with  no  signs  of 
the  later  stoop.  His  body  was  angular,  his  face  beardless, 
such  as  it  is  represented  in  Woolner's  medallion,  which  is 
by  far  the  best  likeness  of  him  in  the  days  of  his  strength. 
His  head  was  extremely  long,  with  the  chin  thrust  for- 
ward ;  the  neck  w^as  thin ;  the  mouth  firmly  closed,  the 
under  lip  slightly  projecting;  the  hair  grizzled  and  thick 
and  bushy.  His  eyes,  which  grew  lighter  with  age,  were 
then  of  a  deep  violet,  with  fire  burning  at  the  bottom  of 
them,  which  flashed  out  at  the  least  excitement.  The 
face  was  altogether  more  striking,  most  impressive  every 
way.  And  I  did  not  admire  him  the  less  because  he 
treated  me — I  cannot  say  unkindly,  but  shortly  and  sternly. 
I  saw  then  what  I  saw  ever  after — that  no  one  need  look 
for  conventional  politeness  from  Carlyle — he  would  hear 
the  exact  truth  from  him,  and  nothing  else. 

AVe  went  afterwards  into  the  dining-room,  where  Mrs. 
Carlyle  gave  us  tea.  Her  features  were  not  regular,  but 
I  thought  I  had  never  seen  a  more  interesting-looking 
woman.  Her  hair  was  raven  black,  her  eyes  dark,  soft, 
sad,  with  dangerous  light  in  them.  Carlyle's  talk  was 
rich,  full,  and  scornful ;  hers  delicately  mocking.  She 
was  fond  of  Spedding,  and  kept  up  a  quick,  sparkling  con- 


392  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

versation  with  him,  telling  stories  at  her  husband's  ex- 
pense, at  which  he  laughed  himself  as  heartily  as  we  did. 

It  struck  me  then,  and  I  found  always  afterwards,  that 
false  sentiment,  insincerity,  cant  of  any  kind  would  find 
no  quarter,  either  from  wife  or  husband ;  and  that  one 
must  speak  truth  only,  and,  if  possible,  think  truth  only, 
if  one  wished  to  be  admitted  into  that  house  on  terms  of 
friendship.  They  told  me  that  I  might  come  again.  I 
did  not  then  live  in  London,  and  had  few  opportunities ; 
but  if  tlie  chance  offered,  I  never  missed  it. 


THOMAS    OARLYLE 

VOL.  IL 


THOMAS     C  A  R  L  Y  L  E 


A  HISTORY  OF  HIS  LIFE  IN  LONDON 


1834-1881 


BY 

JAMES  ANTHONY  FROUDE,  M.A. 

HONORABY  FELLOW   OF   EXETER   COLLEGE,  OXFORD 


TWO    VOLUMES    IN    ONE 

VOL.  II. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNEFS  SONS 

1884 

[All  rights  reserved} 


TROWS 

PftlNTINQ  AND  eOOKBINDINQ  OOMPANV, 

NKW  YORK, 


CONTENTS 

OP 

THE    SECOND    VOLUME. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

A.D.  1849-50.    ^T.  54-55. 

PAoa 
Tour  in  Ireland — The   Irish    problem — Impressions   in   the 

West — Gweedore — Address  at  Deny — Return  to  Scotland 

— the  Highlands — A  shooting  paradise — Reflections  on  it 

— Liberty — Radicalism — Impatience  with  cant — Article  on 

the  Nigger  question — *  Latter-day  Pamphlets,'  ,        ,       1 

CHAPTER  XVIIL 

A,D.  1850.     ^T.  55-56. 

Reaction  from  'Latter-day  Pami^hlets' — Acquaintance  vriih. 
Sir  Robert  Peel— Dinner  in  Whitehall  Place— Ball  at 
Bath  House — Peel's  death — Estimate  of  Peel's  character 
— Visit  to  South  Wales — Savage  Landor — Mei'thyr  Tydvil 
— Scotsbrig — Despondency — Visits  to  Keswick  and  Con- 
iston— The  Grange — Return  to  London,    ....    33 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

A.D.  1851-2.     MT,  56-57. 

Reviews  of  the  Pamphlets— Cheyne  Row— Pai'ty  at  the 
Grange — *  Life  of  Sterling  '—Reception  of  it — Coleridge 
and  his  disciples— Spiritual  optics— Hyde  Park  Exhibi- 
tion— A  month  at  Malvern— Scotland — Trip  to  Paris  with 
Lord  Ashburton, 54 


I 


vx 


Contents. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
A.D.  1851-2.     MT.  56-57. 


PAGE 


Purpose  formed  to  write  on  Frederick  the  Great— The  author 
of  the  *  Handbook  of  Spain  ' — Afflicting  visitors — Studies 
for  *  Frederick  ' — Visit  to  Linlathen — Proposed  tour  in 
Germany  —  Rotterdam — The  Rhine — Bonn — Homburg — 
Frankfurt — Wartburg — Luther  reminiscences — Weimar — 
Berlin — Return  to  England, 72 


CHAPTER  XXL 

A.D.  1852-3.     ^T.  57-58. 

The  Grange — Cheyne  Row — The  Cock  torment — Reflections 
— An  improved  house — Funeral  of  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton—Beginnings of  '  Frederick ' — The  Grange  again — An 
incident — Public  opinion — Mother's  illness — The  demon 
fowls — Last  letter  to  his  mother — Her  death — James 
Carlyle, 103 

CHAPTER    XXIL 

A.D.'  1854.    ^T.  59. 

Crimean  war — Louis  Napoleon — The  sound-proof  room — 
Dreams — Death  of  John  Wilson — Character  of  Wilson — 
A  journal  of  a  day — The  economies  of  Cheyne  Row — Car- 
lyle finances — '  Budget  of  a  Femme  Incompriset^        .         .  128 

CHAPTER  XXm. 

A.D.  1854-7.    Ml.  59-62. 

Difficulties  over  '  Frederick ' — Crimean  war — Louis  Napoleon 
in  England  —  Edward  Fitzgerald  —  Farlingay  —  Three 
weeks  at  Addiscombe — Mrs.  Carlyle  and  Lady  Ashburton 
— Scotsbrig — Kinloch  Luichart — Lady  Ashburton's  death 
— Effect  on  Carlyle — Solitude  in  Cheyne  Row — Riding 
costume — Fritz— Completion  of  the  first  two  volumes  of 
-    *  Frederick ' — Carlyle  as  a  historian,  .         ,        .        .  146 


Contents.  vii 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
A.D.  1858-    .    MT.    -63. 

■  '  _  FAGS 

Night  in  a  Railway  Train — Annandale — Meditations — A  new 
Wardrobe —Visit  to  Craigenputtock— Second  time  in  Ger- 
many— The  Isle  of  Rugin— Putbus  —  Berlin  —  Selesia 
Prag— Weimar — Aix— Frederich  Catterfield's  and  Car- 
lyle's  descriptions  by  turns — Returns  to  England — Second 
Marriage  of  Lord  Ashburton 175 


CHAPTER  XXV. 
A.D.  1859^2.     iET.  64-67. 

Effects  of  a  Literary  Life  upon  the  Character — Evenings  in 
Cheyne  Row— Summers  in  Fife — Visit  to  Sir  George  Sin- 
clair, Thurso  Castle — Mrs.  Carlyle's^  Health — Death  of 
Arthur  Clough — Intimacy  with  Mr.  Ruskin— Party  at  the 
Grange — I>escrii)tion  of  John  Keble — '  Unto  this  Last,'   .  196 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
AD.  1864.     ^T.  69. 

Personal  intercoui*se — Daily  habits — Chanties — Conversation 
— Modem  science  and  its  tendencies — Faith  withoiit 
sight — Bishop  Colenso — The  Broad  Church  School — 
Literature — Misfortunes  of  Fritz — Serious  accident  to 
Mrs.  Carlyle— Her  stmnge  illness — Folkestone — Death  of 
Lord  Ashburton — Mrs.  Carlyle  in  Scotland — Her  slow  re- 
covery— '  Frederick '  finished, 215 

CHAPTER  XXVn. 

A.D.  1865-6.     iET.  70-71. 

'  Frederick  '  completed— Summer  in  Annandale— Mrs.  Carlyle 
in  Nithsdale — Visit  to  Linlathen — Thomas  Erskine — The 
Edinburgh  Rectorship — Feelings  in  Cheyne  Row  about 
it— Buskin's  '  Ethics  of  the  Dust,' 243 


yiii  Contents. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

A.D.  1866.     ^T.  71. 

PA6B 

Preparations  for  the  Kectorsliip— Journey  to  Edinburgh — 
Tyndall — The  Installation — Carlyle's  speech — Character 
of  it — Effect  upon  the  world — Cartoon  in  '  Punch ' — Car- 
lyle  stays  at  Scotsbrig  to  recover — Intended  tea-party  in 
Cheyne  Eow — Sudden  death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle — John  Fors- 
ter — Funeral  at  Haddington — Letters  from  Erskine — 
Carlyle's  answers, 254 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

A.D.    1866.     MT.  71. 

Message  of  sympathy  from  the  Queen — John  Carlyle — Eetro- 
spects — A  future  life — Attemj)ts  at  occupation — Miss 
Davenport  Bromley — The  Eyre  Committee — Memories — 
Mentone — Stay  there  with  Lady  Ashburton — Entries  in 
Journal, 272 

CHAPTER    XXX. 

A.D.  1867.     iET.  72. 

Beturn  to  England — Intruders  in  Cheyne  Eow — Want  of  em- 
ployment— Settlement    of    the   Craigenputtock    estate — 
Charities—  Public   affairs — Tory  Eeform  Bill — '  Shooting 
Niagara ' — A  new  horse — Visits  in  country  houses — Medi- 
•     tation  in  Journal — A  beautiful  recollection,      .         .        .  290 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

A.D.  1868.      ^T.  73. 

The  Eyre  Committee— Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church 
—A  lecture  by  Tyndall —Visit  to  Stratton— S.  G.  O.— 
Last  sight  of  the  Grange — '  Letters  and  Memorials  of 
Mrs.  Carlyle  ' — Meditations  in  Journal— Modern  Athe- 
ism— Democracy  and  popular  orators — Scotland — Inter- 
view with  the  Queen — Portraits — Modern  Atheism — 
Strange  applications — Loss  of  use  of  the  right  hand — 
Uses  of  anarchy, 310 


Contents,  ix 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

A.D.  1870.    ^T.  76. 

Anne  Boleyn— *  Ginx's  Baby'— The  Franco-German  war- 
English  sympathy  with  France — Letter  to  the  *  Times ' — 
Effect  of  it — Inability  to  write — '  Letters  and  Memorials 
of  Mi-s.  Carlyle ' — Disposition  made  of  them,   .        .        .  337 

CHAPTER  XXXin. 
A.D.  1872.     iET.  77. 

Weariness  of  life — History  of  the  Noi-se  Kings — Portrait  of 
John  Knox — Death  of  John  Mill  and  the  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester—Mill and  Carlyle— Irish  iwlicy  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
— Tlie  Prussian  Order  of  Merit — Offer  of  the  Grand  Cmss 
of  the  Bath — Why  refused— Lord  Beaconsfield  and  the 
Russo-Tiu'kish  war — Letter  to  the  '  Times,*       .        ,        .  355 

CHAPTER  XXXIY. 

A.D.  1877-81.     JET.  82-85. 

Conversation  and  habits  of  life — Estimate  of  leading  politi- 
cians— Visit  from  Lord  Wolseley — Lord  Beaconsfield  and 
Mr..  Gladstone — Dislike  of  Jews — The  English  Liturgy — 
An  afternoon  in  Westminster  Abbey — Progress — Democ- 
racy— Religion — The  Bible — Characteristics,     .        ,        .  379 

CHAPTER  XXXY. 

A.D.  1877-81.    MT.  82-85. 

Statues — ^Portraits — Millais's  picture — Study  of  the  Bible — 
Illness  and  death  of  John  Carlyle — Preparation  of  Me- 
moirs— Last  words  about  it — Longing  for  death — The  end 
— Offer  of  a  tomb  in  Westminster  Abbey — Why  declined — 
Ecclefechan  churchyard — Conclusion,       ....  394 


CABLYLE'S 
LIFE     IN    LONDON. 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

A.D.  1849-50.    MT.  54-55. 

Tour  in  Ireland — The  Iiish  problem — Impressions  in  the  West — 
Gweedore— Address  at  Deny — Retum  to  Scotland— the  High- 
lands— A  shooting  paradise — Reflections  on  it — Libei-ty — 
Radicalism— Impatience  with  cant — Article  on  the  Nigger 
question — *  Latter-day  Pamphlets.' 

Carlyle's  purpose  of  writing  a  book  on  Ireland  was  not 
to  be  fulfilled.  He  went  thither.  He  travelled  through 
the  four  provinces.  After  his  return  he  jotted  down  a 
hurried  account  of  his  experiences;  but  that  was  all  the 
contribution  which  he  was  able  to  make  for  the  solution 
of  a  problem  which  he  found  at  once  too  easy  and  too 
hopeless.  Ireland  is  an  enchanted  countrj^  There  is  a 
land  ready,  as  any  land  ever  w^as,  to  answer  to  cultivation. 
There  is  a  people  ready  to  cultivate  it,  to  thrive,  and  cover 
the  surface  of  it  with  happy,  prosperous  homes,  if  ruled, 
like  other  nations,  by  methods  which  suit  their  tempera- 
ment. If  the  Anglo-Saxons  liad  set  about  governing  Ire- 
land with  the  singleness  of  aim  with  which  they  govern 
India  or  build  their  own  railways,  a  few  seasons  at  any 
Vol.  IV.— 1 


2  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

time  would  have  seen  the  end  of  its  misery  and  discon- 
tent. But  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  never  approached  Ire- 
land in  any  such  spirit.  They  have  had  the  welfare  of 
Ireland  on  their  lips.  In  their  hearts  tliey  have  thought 
only  of  England's  welfare,  or  of  what  in  some  narrow 
prejudice  they  deemed  to  be  such,  of  England's  religious 
interests,  commercial  interests,  political  interests.  So  it 
was  wheti  Henry  II.  set  up  Popery  tliere.  So  it  was 
when  Elizabeth  set  up  the  Protestant  Establishment  there. 
So  it  is  now  when  tlie  leaders  of  the  English  Liberals 
again  destroy  that  Establishment  to  secure  the  Irish  votes 
to  their  party  in  Parliament.  The  curse  which  has  made 
that  wretched  island  the  world's  by-word  is  not  in  Ireland 
in  itself,  but  in  the  inability  of  its  conquerors  to  recognise 
that,  if  they  take  away  a  nation's  liberty,  they  may  not 
use  it  as  the  plaything  of  their  own  selfishness  or  their 
own  factions.  For  seven  hundred  years  they  have  fol- 
lowed on  the  same  lines :  the  principle  the  same,  however 
opposite  the  action.  As  it  was  in  the  days  of  Strongbow, 
so  it  is  to-day  ;  and  '  healing  measures,'  ushered  in  no 
matter  with  what  pomp  of  eloquence  or  parade  of  justice, 
remain,  and  will  remain,  a  mockery.  Carlyle  soon  saw 
how  it  was.  To  write  on  Ireland,  as  if  a  remedy  could  be 
found  there,  while  the  poisonous  fountain  still  flowed  at 
Westminster  unpurified,  would  be  labour  vain  as  spinning 
ropes  of  moonshine.  He  noted  down  what  he  had  seen, 
and  then  dismissed  the  unhappy  subject  from  his  mind  ; 
giving  his  manuscript  to  a  friend  as  something  of  which 
he  desired  to  hear  no  more  for  ever.  It  was  published 
after  his  death,  and  the  briefest  summary  of  what  to  him- 
self had  no  value  is  all  that  need  concern  us  here.  He 
left  London  on  the  30th  of  June  in  a  Dublin  steamboat. 
He  could  sleep,  sound  at  sea,  and  therefore  pi-eferred  '  long 
«ea'  to  land  when  the  choice  was  offered  him.  Punning 
past  the  Isle  of  Wight,  he  saw  in  the  distance  Sterling's 


Iri^h  I'our,  3 

house  at  Ventnor ;  he  saw  Plymouth,  Fahnouth,  the  Land's 
End.  Then,  crossing  St.  George's  Channel,  lie  came  on 
the  Irish  coast  at  Wexford,  where  the  chief  scenes  of  the 
Rebellion  of  1798  stand  clear  against  the  sky. 

I  thought  (he  writes)  of  the  battle  of  Vinegar  Hill,  but  not  with 
interest ;  with  sorrow,  rather,  and  contempt ;  one  of  the  ten  times 
ten  thousand  futile,  fruitless  battles  this  brawling,  unreasonable 
people  has  fought ;  the  saddest  of  distinctions  to  them  among 
peoples. 

At  Dublin  he  met  Gavan  DufFy  again  ;  stayed  several 
days;  saw  various  notabilities — Petrie,  the  antiquarian, 
among  others,  whose  high  merit  he  at  once  recognised  ; 
declined  an  invitation  from  the  Viceroy,  and  on  the  8th 
(a  Sunday),  Dublin  and  the  neighbourhood  being  done 
with,  he  started  for  the  south.  Kildare  was  his  first 
stage. 

Kildare,  as  I  entered  it,  looked  worse  and  worse — one  of  the 
wretchedest  wild  villages  I  ever  saw,  and  full  of  ragged  beggars  : 
exotic,  altogether  like  a  village  in  Dahomey,  man  and  church 
both.  Knots  of  worshipping  people  hung  about  the  streets,  and 
everywhere  round  them  hovered  a  harpy  swarm  of  clamorous  men- 
dicants— men,  women,  children ;  a  village  winged,  as  if  a  flight  of 
harpies  had  alighted  on  it.  Here  for  the  first  time  was  Irish  beg- 
gary itself. 

In  the  railway  ^  a  big  blockhead  sate  with  his  dirty  feet 
on  seat  opposite,  not  stirring  them  for  Carlyle,  who  wanted 
to  sit  there.'  *  One  thing  we're  all  agreed  on,'  said  he. 
*  We're  very  ill  governed — Whig,  Tory,  Radical,  Repealer, 
all  admit  we're  very  ill  governed.'  Carlyle  thought  to 
liimself,  *  Yes,  indeed.  You  govern  yourself.  lie  that 
would  govern  you  well  would  probably  surprise  you  much, 
my  fi'iend,  laying  a  hearty  horsewhip  on  that  back  of 
yours.' 

Owing  to  the  magic  companionship  of  Mr.  DufFy,  he 
met  and  talked  freely  with  priests  and  patriots.      Loixl 


4  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Monteagle's  introductions  secured  him  attention  from  the 
Anglo-Irish  gentry.  He  was  entertained  at  the  Castle  at 
Lismore,  saw  Waterford,  Youghal,  Castlemartyr,  and  then 
Cork,  where  he  encountered  '  one  of  the  two  sons  of  Adam 
who,  sixteen  years  before,  had  encouraged  Fraser,  the 
bookseller,  to  go  on  with  "  Teufelsdrockh," '  a  priest,  a 
Father  O'Shea,  to  whom  for  this  at  least  he  was  grateful. 
Killarney  was  the  next  stage  ;  beauty  and  squalor  tliere, 
as  everywhere,  sadly  linked  to  one  another.  Kear  Killar- 
ney he  stayed  wdth  Sir and  his  interesting    wife ; 

good  people,  but  strong  upholders  of  the  Anglo-Irish 
Church,  which,  however  great  its  merits  otherwise,  had 
made  little  of  missionary  work  among  the  Catholic  Celts. 
He  wished  well  to  all  English  institutions  in  Ireland, 
but  he  had  a  fixed  conviction  that  the  Anglo-Catholic 
Church  at  least,  both  there  and  everywhere,  was  unequal 
to  its  work.  He  went  with  his  friends  to  the  '  service,' 
which  was  '  decently  performed.' 

I  felt  (he  says)  how  English  Protestants,  or  the  sons  of  such, 
might  with  zealous  affection  Hke  to  assemble  here  once  a  week 
and  remind  themselves  of  English  purities  and  decencies  and  Gos- 
jDel  ordinances,  in  the  midst  of  a  black,  howling  Babel  of  super- 
stitious savagery,  like  Hebrews  sitting  by  the  streams  of  Babylon. 
But  I  felt  more  clearly  than  ever  how  impossible  it  was  that  an 
extraneous  son  of  Adam,  first  seized  by  the  terrible  conviction 
that  he  had  a  soul  to  be  saved  or  damned,  that  he  must  read  the 
riddle  of  this  universe  or  go  to  perdition  everlasting,  could  for  a 
moment  think  of  taking  this  respectable  'performance'  as  the 
solution  of  the  mystery  for  him.  Oh  heavens !  never  in  this 
world !  Weep  by  the  stream  of  Babel,  decent,  clean  English 
Irish ;  weep,  for  there  is  cause,  till  you  can  do  something  better 
than  weep  ;  but  expect  no  Babylonian  or  any  other  mortal  to  con- 
cern himself  with  that  affair  of  yours.  ...  No  sadder  truth 
presses  itself  upon  me  than  the  necessity  there  will  soon  be,  and 
the  call  there  everywhere  already  is,  to  quit  these  old  rubrics  and 
give  up  these  empty  performances  altogether.  All  religions  that 
I  fell  in  with  in  Ireland  seemed  to  me  too  irreligious  :  really,  in 
sad  truth,  doing  mischief  to  the  people  instead  of  good. 


Irish   Tour.  5 

Limerick,  Clare,  Lough  Derg  on  the  Shannon,  Galway, 
Castlebar,  Westport — these  were  the  successive  points  of 
the  journey.  At  Westport  was  a  workhouse  and  '  human 
swinery  at  its  acme  ; '  30,000  paupers  out  of  a  population 
of  60,000 ;  '  an  abomination  of  desolation.'  Thence, 
through  the  dreariest  parts  of  Mayo,  he  drove  on  to  Bul- 
lina,  where  he  found  Forster,  of  Ilawdon,  waiting  for 
him — W.  E.  Forster,  then  young  and  earnest,  and  eager 
to  master  in  C'arlyle's  company  the  enigma  which  he  took 
in  hand  as  Chief  Secretary  three  years  ago  (1881,  «fec.), 
with  what  success  the  w^orld  by  this  time  knows.  Carlyle, 
at  least,  is  not  responsible  for  the  failure,  certain  as 
mathematics,  of  the  Irish  Land  Act.  Forster  perhaps 
discovered  at  the  time  that  he  would  find  little  to  suit  him 
in  Carlyle's  views  of  the  matter.  They  soon  parted. 
Carlyle  hastened  on  to  Donegal  to  see  a  remarkable  ex- 
periment which  was  then  being  attempted  there.  Lord 
Geoi-ge  Hill  was  endeavouring  to  show  at  Gweedore  that, 
with  proper  resources  of  intellect,  energy,  and  money 
wisely  expended,  a  section  of  Ireland  could  be  lifted  t»ut 
of  its  misery  even  under  the  existing  conditions  of  En- 
glish administration. 

His  distinct  conclusion  was  that  this  too,  like  all  else  of 
the  kind,  was  building  a  house  out  of  sand,  lie  went  to 
Gweedore  ;  he  stayed  with  Lord  George  ;  he  saw  all  that 
he  w^as  doing  or  trying  to  do,  and  he  perceived,  with  a 
clearness  which  the  event  has  justified,  that  the  persuasive 
charitable  method  of  raising  lost  men  out  of  the  dirt  and 
leading  them  of  their  own  accord  into  the  ways  that  they 
should  go,  was,  in  Ireland  at  least,  doomed  to  fail  from 
the  beginning. 

I  liad  to  rci^eat  often  to  Lord  George  (he  says),  to  which  he 
could  not  refuse  essential  consent,  Ins  is  the  largest  attempt  at 
benevolence  and  beneficence  on  the  modern  system  (the  emanci- 
pation, all  for  liberty,  abolition  of  capital  punishment,  roast  gooso 


C  Cadyle^s  Life  in  London. 

at  Christmas  system)  ever  seen  by  me  or  like  to  be  seen.  Alas! 
how  can  it  prosper,  except  to  the  soul  of  the  noble  man  himself 
who  earnestly  tries  it  and  works  at  it,  making  himself  a  slave  to  it 
these  seventeen  years  ? 

It  would  be  interesting  to  compare  Carljle's  tour,  or 
any  modern  tour,  in  Ireland,  with  Arthur  Young's,  some- 
thing over  a  hundred  years  ago — before  Grattan's  consti- 
tution, the  Yolunteers,  the  glorious  liberties  of  1782, 
Catholic  emancipation,  and  the  rest  that  has  followed. 
Carlyle  found  but  one  Lord  George  Hill  hopelessly 
struggling  with  impossibilities ;  Arthur  Young  found  not 
one,  but  many  peers  and  gentlemen  working  effectively^  in 
the  face  of  English  discouragement :  draining,  planting, 
building,  making  large  districts,  now  all  '  gone  back  to 
bog '  again,  habitable  by  human  beings,  and  successfully 
accomplishing  at  least  a  part  of  the  work  which  they  were 
set  to  do.  All  that  is  not  waste  and  wilderness  in  Ireland 
is  really  the  work  of  these  poor  men. 

From  Gweedore  to  Derry  was  an  easy  journey.  There 
his  travels  were  to  end  ;  he  was  to  find  a  steamer  which 
would  take  him  to  Scotland.  Five  weeks  had  passed 
since  he  landed.  On  August  6  he  met  at  breakfast  a 
company  of  Derry  citizens,  who  had  come  to  hear  the  im- 
pression which  these  weeks  had  left  upon  him. 

Emphatic  talk  to  them,  far  too  emphatic  :  human  nerves  being 
worn  out  with  exasperation.  Eemedy  for  Ireland?  To  cease  gen- 
erally from  following  the  Devil !  No  other  remedy  that  I  know  of. 
One  general  life  element  of  humbug  these  two  centuries.  And 
now  it  has  fallen  bankrupt.  This  universe,  my  worthy  brothers, 
has  its  laws,  terrible  as  death  and  judgment  if  we  '  cant '  ourselves 
away  from  following  them.  Land  tenure  ?  What  is  a  landlord  at 
this  moment  in  any  country  if  Khadamanthus  looked  at  him  ?  What 
is  an  Archbishop  ?  Alas  !  what  is  a  Queen  ?  Wliat  is  a  British 
specimen  of  the  genus  homo  in  these  generations  ?  A  bundle  of 
hearsays  and  authentic  appetites— a. canaille  whom  the  gods  are 
about  to  chastise  and  to  extinguish  if  he  cannot  alter  himself,  &c. 


John  CarlyU.  7 

Derrj^  aristocrats  behaved  very  well  under  all  this.  Not  a  pleas- 
ant breakfast ;  but,  oh  I  it  is  the  last. 

This  was  Monday,  August  6.  On  the  7th,  Carlyle  was 
in  his  own  land  again,  having  left  the  '  huge  suppuration  ' 
to  suppurate  more  and  more  till  it  burst,  he  feeling  that 
an}'  true  speech  upon  it  would  be  like  speaking  to  the 
deaf  winds.     On  reaching  Scotsbrig,  he  exclaimed  : 

Thank  Heaven  for  the  sight  of  real  human  industry,  with  hu- 
man fi-uits  fi-om  it,  once  more.  The  sight  of  fenced  fields,  weeded 
crops,  and  human  creatures  with  whole  clothes  on  their  back — it 
was  as  if  one  had  got  into  spring  water  out  of  dunghill  puddles. 

Ilis  wife  had  meanwhile  gone  to  Scotland  on  her  own 
account.  She  had  spent  three  singularly  interesting  days 
at  Haddington  (which  she  has  herself  described  'j,  where 
she  wandered  like  a  returned  spirit  about  the  home  of  her 
childhood.  She  had  gone  thence  to  her  relations  at  Auch- 
tertool,  in  Fife,  and  was  there  staying  when  her  husband 
was  at  Gweedore.  A  characteristic  letter  of  hers  survives, 
written  thence,  whicli  must  have  been  omitted  by  accident 
in  Carlyle's  collection.  It  was  to  her  brother-in-law  John, 
and  is  in  her  liveliest  style.  John's  translation  of  Dante's 
'  Inferno  '  was  just  out,  and  the  family  were  busy  reading 
it  and  talking  about  it. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Auchtertool  Manse :  July  27,  1849. 

We  had  been  talking  about  you,  and  had  sunk  silent.  Suddenly 
my  uncle  turned  his  head  to  me  and  said,  shaking  it  gravely,  *  Ho 
has  made  an  awesome  plooster  o'  that  place.*  *  Who  ?  what  place, 
uncle  ? '  '  Whew  !  the  place  ye'll  maybe  gang  to  if  ye  dinna  tak' 
care.*  I  really  believe  he  considers  all  those  circles  of  your  in- 
vention. 

Walter '  performed  the  marriage  service  over  a  couple  of  colliers 
the  day  after  I  came.  I  happened  to  be  in  his  study  when  they 
came  in,  and  asked  leave  to  remain.  The  man  was  a  good-look- 
ing man   enough,   dreadfully  agitated,  partly  with  the  business 

«  Letters  and  JfemoriaU^  vol.  ii.,  p.  55.  »  A  cousin  just  ordained. 


8  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

lie  \yas  come  on,  partly  with  drink.  He  had  evidently  taken  a 
glass  too  much  to  keep  his  heart  up.  The  girl  had  one  very 
large  inflamed  eye  and  one  little  one,  which  looked  perfectly  com- 
posed, while  the  large  eye  stared  wildly  and  had  a  tear  in  it. 
Walter  married  them  very  well  indeed  ;  and  his  affecting  words, 
together  with  the  bridegroom's  j^ale,  excited  face,  and  the  bride's 
ugliness,  and  the  j^overty,  penury,  and  want  imprinted  on  the 
v.'liole  business,  and  above  all  fellow-feeling  with  the  poor  wretches 
then  rushing  on  their  fate — all  that  so  overcame  me  that  I  fell 
crying  as  desperately  as  if  I  had  been  getting  married  to  the  col- 
lier myself,  and,  when  the  ceremony  was  over,  extended  my  hand 
to  the  unfortunates,  and  actually  (in  such  an  enthusiasm  of  pity 
did  I  find  myself)  I  presented  the  new  husband  with  a  snujEf-box 
which  I  happened  to  have  in  my  hand,  being  just  about  j^resent- 
ing  it  to  Walter  when  the  creatures  came  in.  This  unexpected 
Himmelsendung  finished  turning  the  man's  head  ;  he  wrung  my 
hand  over  and  over,  leaving  his  mark  for  some  hours  after,  and 
ended  his  grateful  speeches  with  *  Oh,  Miss  !  Oh,  Liddy  !  may  ye 
hae  mair  comfort  and  pleasure  in  your  life  than  ever  you  have  had 
yet ! '  which  might  easily  be. 

Carljle  stayed  quiet  at  Scotsbrig,  meditating  on  tlie 
break-down  of  the  proposed  Irish  book,  and  uncertain 
what  lie  should  turn  to  instead.  He  had  promised  to  join 
the  Ashburtons  in  the  course  of  the  autumn  at  a  Highland 
shooting-box.  Shooting  parties  were  out  of  his  line  alto- 
gether, but  perhaps  he  did  not  object  to  seeing  for  once 
what  such  a  thing  was  like.  Scotsbrig,  too,  was  not 
agreeing  with  him. 

Last  night  (he  says  in  a  letter  thence)  I  awoke  at  three,  and 
made  nothing  more  of  it,  owing  to  cocks  and  other  blessed  fellow- 
inhabitants  of  this  planet,  not  all  of  whom  are  friendly  to  me,  I 
perceive.  In  fact,  this  planet  was  not  wholly  made  for  me,  but 
for  me  and  others,  including  cocks,  unclean  things  many,  and  even 
the  Devil ;  that  is  the  real  secret  of  it.  Alas  !  a  human  creature 
with  these  particularities  in  mere  sleep,  not  to  speak  of  any  others, 
is  he  not  a  creature  to  be  prayed  for? 

He  remained  there  till  the  end  of  August,  and  then 
started  on  his  expedition.     Glen  Truim,  to  which  he  was 


Glen  Tndm.  9 

bound,  was  in  the  far  North,  in  Macpherson  of  Clunie's 
country.  The  railroad  was  yet  unfinished,  and  the  jour- 
ney— long  and  tedious — had  to  be  transacted  by  coach, 
lie  was  going  against  the  grain.  Perhaps  his  wife  thought 
that  he  would  have  done  more  wisely  to  decline.  He 
stopped  on  the  way  at  Auchtertool  to  see  her;  *had,'  he 
says,  '  a  miserable  enough  hugger-mugger  time  ;  my  own 
blame — none  others  so  much  ; '  '  saw  that  always.'  Cer- 
tainly, as  the  event  proved,  he  would  have  been  better  off 
out  of  the  way  of  the  '  guimer  bodies.'  If  he  was  miser- 
able in  Fife,  he  was  far  from  happy  with  his  grand  friends 
in  Glen  Truim. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Glen  Truim  :  September  2,  1849. 

Wliat  can  I  do  but  write  to  you,  even  if  I  were  not  bound  by 
the  law  of  the  wayfarer  ?  It  is  my  course  whenever  I  am  out  of 
sorts  or  in  low  spirits  among  strangers  ;  emphatically  my  case  just 
now  in  this  closet  of  a  house,  among  rains  and  highland  mosses, 
with  a  nervous  system  all  *  dadded  about '  by  coach  travel,  rail 
travel,  multiplied  confusion,  and  finally  by  an  almost  totally 
sleepless  night.  Happily,  this  closet  is  my  own  for  the  time  being. 
Here  is  paper.  Here  are  pens.  I  will  tell  my  woes  to  poor  Goody. 
Well  do  I  know  that,  in  spite  of  prepossessions,  she  will  have  some 
pity  of  me.     .     .     . 

You  may  fancy  what  the  route  was.  .  .  .  The  fat  old  land- 
lord at  Bunkeld,  grown  grey  and  much  broader,  was  the  only  known 
li\'ing  creature.'  A  still,  olive-coloured  mist  hung  over  all  the 
country.  Elinnaird  and  the  old  house  which  was  my  sleeping-place 
when  I  used  to  write  to  you  were  greyly  discernible  across  the  river 
amid  their  trees.  I  thought  of  the  waterhen  you  have  heard  me 
menfeion,  of  the  ix)ny  I  used  to  ride,  of  the  whole  world  that  then 
lived,  dead  now  mostly,  fallen  silent  for  evermore,  even  as  the  poor 
Bullers  are,  and  as  we  shall  shortly  be.  Such  reflections,  when 
they  do  not  issue  pusillanimously,  are  as  good  as  the  sight  of 
Michael  Angolo's  *  Last  Judgment,' and  deserve  their  place  from 
time  to  time. 

'  Remembered  from  the  time  whcu  he  had  been  the  Bullers'  tutor,  twenty - 
■even  years  before. 


10  Carlyleh  Life  in  London. 

The  journej  to  Invernessshire  is  detailed  with  copious 
iniiiuteness.  His  eye  always  cauglit  small  details  when 
they  had  meaiiiDg  in  them.  The  coach  dropped  him 
finally  at  the  roadside,  in  sight  of  Glen  TiTiim — '  the  house, 
a  rather  foolish-looking,  tnrretted,  diminutive,  pretentious, 
grey  granite  sort  of  a  place,  half  a  mile  off ; '  the  country 
an  undulated  plain — a  very  broad  valley  with  no  high  hill 
but  one  near  by,  '  bare  for  the  i-est,  and  by  no  means  a  Gar- 
den of  Eden  in  any  respect.'     lie  continues  : — 

The  gillie  that  was  to  wait  for  us  was  by  no  means  waiting.  He 
'  mistook  the  time.'  Nothing  but  solitary,  bare  moor  was  waiting.  I 
took  the  next  cottage,  left  my  goods  there,  walked  ;  found  nobody, 
as  usual.  In  brief,  oh,  Goody,  Goody  !  it  was  four  o'clock  before 
I  actually  found  landlord  ;  four  and  a  half  landlady  ;  I  walking  all 
the  while,  with  no  refection  but  cigars :  five  before  I  could  get 
hold  of  my  luggage,  and  eight,  after  vain  attempts  at  sleep  amidst 
noises  as  of  a  sacked  city,  before  any  nourishment,  for  which  indeed 
I  had  no  appetite  at  all,  was  ministered  to  me.  From  the  hospi- 
talities of  the  great  world,  even  when  kindly  affected  to  us,  good 
Lord  deliver  liooz !     .     .     . 

In  fact,  when  I  think  of  the  Grange,  and  Bath  House,  and  Ad- 
discombe,  and  consider  this  wretched  establishment,  and  500/.  for 
two  months  of  it,  I  am  lost  in  amazement.  The  house  is  not  actually 
much  beyond  Craigenputtock — say  two  Craigenputtocks  ill  con- 
trived and  ill  managed.  Nor  is  the  prospect  in  a  higher  ratio ;  and 
for  society,  really  Corson, '  except  that  he  was  not  called  Lord,  and 
had  occasionally  '  his  forehead  all  elevated  into  inequalities,'  Cor- 
son, I  say,  was  intrinsically  equal  to  the  average  of  *  gunner  bodies. ' 
Oh,  Jeannie  dear,  when  I  think  of  our  poverty  even  at  the  present, 
and  see  this  wealth,  which  do  you  imagine  I  prefer  ?  The  two  Lords 

we  have  here  area  fat ,  a  sensual,  proud-looking  man,  of  whom 

or  his  genesis  or  environment  I  know  nothing,  and  then  a  small, 

leanish ,  neither  of  whom  is  worth  a  doit  to  me.     Their  wives 

are  polite,  elegant-looking  women,   but  hardly  beyond  the 

range  ;  not  a  better,  though  a  haughtier.  Poor  Lord  Ashburton 
looks  rustic  and  healthy,  but  seems  more  absent  and  oblivious  than 
ever.  A  few  reasonable  words  with  me  seem  as  if  suddenly  to 
awaken  him  to  surprised  remembrance.      Young  Lord  N.    you 

^  A  farmer  who  lived  near  Craigenputtock. 


A  Shooting  Paradise,  11 

know.  Merchant  B.,  really  one  of  the  sensiblest  figures  here,  he 
and  Miss  Emily  Baring  make  up  the  lot,  and  we  are  crammed  like 
herrings  in  a  barrel.  The  two  lads  are  in  one  room.  This  apart- 
ment of  mine,  looking  out  towards  Aberdeenshire  and  the  brown, 
wavy  moors,  is  of  nine  feet  by  seven :  a  French  bed,  and  hot  water 
not  to  be  had  for  scarcity  of  jugs.  I  awoke  after  an  hour  and  a 
quarter's  sleep,  and  one  of  those  Peei*s  of  the  Realm  snored  audibly 
to  me.  •  ...  In  fact,  it  is  rather  clear  I  shall  do  no  good  here 
unless  things  alter  exceedingly.  I  mean  to  petition  to  be  oflf  to 
tlie  bothy  '  to-morrow,  where  at  least  will  be  some  kind  of  silence. 
I  must  go,  and  will  if  I  miss  another  night  of  sleep  and  have 
to  dine  again  at  eight  amidst  talk  of  *  birds  ; '  and,  on  the  whole, 
as  soon  as  I  can  get  what  little  bit  of  duty  I  have  discovered 
for  myself  to  do  here  done,  the  sooner  I  cut  cable  or  lift  anchor  for 
other  latitudes,  I  decidedly  find  it  will  be  the  better.  .  .  . 
Pity  me  when  thou  canst,  poor  little  soul !  or  laugh  at  me  if  thou 
wilt.  Oh  !  if  you  could  read  my  heart  and  whole  thought  at  this 
moment,  there  is  surely  one  sad  thing  you  would  cease  to  do  hence- 
forth. But  enough  of  all  these  sad  niaiserles,  which  indeed  I  my- 
self partly  laugh  at ;  for  really  I  am  wonderfully  well  to-day,  and 
have  this  impregnable  closet,  with  a  window  that  pulls  down,  and 
the  wide  Highland  moors  before  me  worth  looking  at  for  once. 
And  we  shall  get  out  of  this  adventure  handsomely  enough,  if  I 
miscalculate  not,  by-and-by.  Milnes  is  to  be  here  in  a  day  or  two, 
and  these  Lords  of  Parliament  with  their  gunboxes  and  retinue 
are  to  go.     We  shall  know  shooting-boxes  for  the  time  to  come. 

The  Ashburtons  were  as  attentive  to  Cai-lyle's  peculiari- 
ties as  it  was  possible  to  be.  ]S'o  prince's  confessor,  in  the 
ages  of  faith,  could  have  more  consideration  shown  him 
than  he  in  this  restricted  mansion.  The  best  apartment 
was  made  over  to  him  as  soon  as  it  was  vacant.  A  special 
dinner  was  arranged  for  him  at  his  own  hour.  But  ho 
was  out  of  his  element. 

September  T, 

I  have  got  a  big  waste  room,  and  in  spite  of  noises  and  turmoils 

contrive  to  get  nightly  in  instalments  some  six  hours  of  sleep. 

But  on  the  whole  my  visit  prospers  as  ill  as  could  be  wished. 

Double,  double,  toil  and  trouble  !— that  and  nothing  else  at  all. 

*  A  lodge  some  miles  distant. 


12  Carlyl(^s  Life  in  London. 

No  reasonable  word  is  heard,  or  hardly  one,  in  the  twenty-four 
hours.  I  cannot  even  get  a  washing-tub.  My  last  attempt  at 
washing  was  in  a  foot-j^ail,  as  unfit  for  it  as  a  teacup  would  have 
been,  and  it  brought  on  the  lumbago.  Patientia!  I  have  known 
now  what  Highland  shooting  paradises  are,  and  one  experiment,  I 
think,  will  be  quite  enough.  On  the  whole,  I  feel  hourly  there 
will  be  nothing  for  it  but  to  get  my  visit  done  and  fly  across  the 
hills  again,  quam primum.  It  is,  in  fact,  such  a  scene  of  folly  as  no 
sane  man  could  wish  to  continue  in  or  return  to.  Oh,  my  wise 
little  Goody  !  what  a  blessing  in  comparison  with  all  the  Peerage 
books  and  Eldorados  in  the  world  is  a  little  solid  sense  derived 
from  Heaven  ! 

Poor  '  shooting  paradise ' !  It  answered  the  purpose  it 
was  intended  for.  Work,  even  to  the  aristocracy,  is  ex- 
acting in  these  days.  Pleasure  is  even  more  exacting ; 
and  unless  tliey  could  rough  it  now  and  then  in  primitive 
fashion  and  artificial  plainness  of  living,  they  would  sink 
under  the  burden  of  their  splendours  and  the  w^eariness  of 
their  duties.  Carlyle  had  no  bushiess  in  such  a  scene. 
He  never  fired  off  a  gun  in  his  life.  lie  never  lived  in 
liabitual  luxury,  and  therefore  could  not  enjoy  the  absence 
of  common  conveniences,  lie  was  out  of  humour  with 
what  he  saw.  lie  was  out  of  humour  with  himself  for 
being  a  part  of  it.  Three  weeks  of  solitude  at  Scotsbrig, 
to  which  he  hastened  to  retreat,  scarcely  repaired  his  suf- 
ferings at  Glen  Truim. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig:  September  17,  1849. 
I  am  lazy  beyond  measure.  I  sleep  and  smoke,  and  would  fain 
do  nothing  else  at  all.  If  they  would  but  let  me  sit  alone  in  this 
room,  I  think  I  should  be  tempted  to  stay  long  in  it,  forgetting 
and  forgotten,  so  inexpressibly  wearied  is  my  poor  body  and  poor 
soul.  Ah  me !  People  ought  not  to  be  angiy  at  me.  People 
ought  to  let  me  alone.  Perhaps  they  would  if  they  rightly  under- 
stood what  I  was  doing  and  suffering  in  this  Life  Pilgrimage  at 
times  ;  but  they  cannot,  the  good  friendly  souls  !  Ah  me !  or, 
rather  :  Courage  !  courage  !  The  rough  billows  and  cross  Avinds 
shall  not  beat  us  yet ;  not  at  this  stage  of  the  voyage,  and  harbour 


Scolshroj.  13 

almost  within  sight.  Tho  fact  is  that  just  now  I  am  very  weary, 
and  the  more  sleep  I  get  1  seem  to  grow  the  wearier.  Yesterday 
I  took  a  ride  ;  tho  lanes  all  silent,  fields  full  of  stocks,  and  Burns- 
waik  and  the  everlasting  hills  looking  quite  clear  upon  me.  Jog ! 
jog !  So  went  the  little  shelty  at  its  own  slow  will ;  and  death 
seemed  to  me  almost  all  one  with  life,  and  eternity  much  the  same 

as  time.  « 

'  September  24. 

Alas,  my  poor  little  Goody!  These  are  not  good  times  at 
all.  .  .  .  Your  poor  hand  and  heart,  too,  were  in  sad  case  on 
Friday.  Let  me  hope  you  have  well  slept  since  that,  given  up 
*  thinking  of  the  old  'uu,'  and  much  modified  the  *  Gummidge ' 
view  of  affairs.  Sickness  and  distraction  of  nerves  is  a  good  ex- 
cuse for  almost  any  degree  of  despondency.  .  .  .  But  we  can 
by  no  means  permit  ourselves  a  philosophy  a  la  Gummidge — not 
at  all,  poor  lone  critturs  though  we  be.  In  fact,  there  remains  at 
all  times  and  in  all  conceivable  situations,  short  of  Tophet  itself, 
a  set  of  quite  infinite  prizes  for  us  to  strive  after — namely,  of 
duties  to  do  ;  and  not  till  after  they  are  done  can  we  talk  of  retir- 
ing to  the  *  House.*  Oh  no  !  Give  up  that,  I  entreat  you  ;  for  it 
is  mere  want  of  sleep  and  other  unreality,  I  tell  you.  There  has 
nothing  changed  in  the  heavens  nor  in  the  earth  since  times  were 
much  more  tolerable  than  that.  Poor  thing !  You  are  utterly 
worn  out ;  and  I  hope  a  little,  though  I  have  no  right  properly, 
to  get  a  letterkin  to-morrow  with  a  cheerioj'  report  of  matters. 
Furthermore,  I  am  coming  home  myself  in  some  two  days,  and  I 
reasonably  calculate,  not  wnreasonably  according  to  all  the  light  I 
have,  that  our  life  may  be  much  more  comfortable  together  than 
it  has  been  for  some  yeara  past.  In  me,  if  I  can  help  it,  there 
shall  not  be  anything  wanting  for  an  issue  so  desirable,  so  indis- 
l)Gnsable  in  fact.  If  you  ^vill  open  your  own  eyes  and  shut  your 
evil  demon's  imaginings  and  dreamings,  I  firmly  believe  all  will 
soon  be  well.  God  grant  it.  Amen,  amen  !  I  love  thee  always, 
little  as  thou  wilt  believe  it. 

September  25. 

For  two  nights  past  I  have  got  into  the  bad  habit  of  dividing 
my  sleep  in  two ;  waking  a  couple  of  hours  by  way  of  interlude, 
and  then  sleeping  till  ton  o'clock — a  bad  habit,  if  I  could  mend 
it ;  but  who  can  ?  My  two  hours  of  waking  pass  in  wondrous 
resuscitations  and  reviews  of  all  manner  of  dead  events,  not  quite 

'  In  anuwer  to  a  melancholy  letter. 


14  Ca7'lyle's  Life  in  London. 

nnprofitably  perhaps,  and  though,  sadly,  not  unpleasantly — sad  as 
death,  but  also  quiet  as  death,  and  with  a  faint  reflex  of  sacred 
joy  (if  I  could  be  worthy  of  it),  like  the  light  which  is  beyond 
death.  No  earthly  fortune  is  very  formidable  to  me,  nor  very 
desirable.  A  soul  of  something  heavenly  I  do  seem  to  see  in  every 
human  life,  and  in  my  own  too,  and  that  is  traly  and  for  ever  of 
imj^ortance  to  me^  .  .  .  Oh  my  dear  little  Jeannie  ! — for  on 
the  whole  there  is  none  of  them  all  worth  naming  beside  thee 
when  thy  better  genius  is  not  banished — try  to  sleep  to  compose 
thy  poor  little  heart  and  nerves,  to  love  me  as  of  old,  at  least  not 
to  hate  me.  My  heart  is  very  weary,  wayworn  too  with  fifty-three 
rough  years  behind  me  :  but  it  is  bound  to  thee,  poor  soul !  as  I 
can  never  bind  it  to  any  other.  Help  me  to  lead  well  what  of  life 
may  still  remain,  and  I  will  be  for  ever  grateful. — God  bless  you 
always.  T.  Caelyle. 

The  three  months  of  holiday  were  thus  spent — -strange 
holidays.  But  a  man  carries  liis  shadow  clinging  to  hhii, 
and  cannot  part  with  it,  except  in  a  novel.  lie  was  now 
driven  by  accumulation  of  discontent  to  disburden  his 
heart  of  its  secretions.  During  the  last  two  revolutionary 
years  he  had  covered  many  sheets  with  his  reflections. 
At  the  bottom  of  his  whole  nature  lay  abhorrence  of  false- 
hood. To  see  facts  as  they  actually  were,  and,  if  that  was 
impossible,  at  least  to  desire  to  see  them,  to  be  sincere 
with  his  own  soul,  and  to  speak  to  others  exactly  what  he 
himself  believed,  was  to  him  tlie  highest  of  all  human 
duties.  Therefoi-e  he  detested  cant  with  a  perfect  hatred. 
Cant  was  organised  hypocrisy,  the  art  of  making  things 
seem  what  they  were  not ;  an  art  so  deadly  that  it  killed 
the  very  souls  of  those  who  practised  it,  carrying  them 
beyond  the  stage  of  conscious  falsehood  into  a  belief  in 
their  own  illusions,  and  reducing  them  to  the  wretchedest 
of  possible  conditions,  that  of  being  sincerely  insincere. 
With  cant  of  this  kind  he  saw  all  Europe,  all  America, 
overrun  ;  but  beyond  all,  his  own  England  appeared  to 
him  to  be  drenched  in  cant — cant  religious,  cant  political, 
cant  moral,  cant  artistic,  cant  everywhere  and  in  every- 


Letter  to  Erakine.  15 

thing.  A  letter  to  Mr.  Erskine,  written  before  the  Fiench 
Revolution,  shows  what  he  was  then  thinking  about  it ; 
and  all  that  had  happened  since  had  wrought  his  convic- 
tion to  whiter  heat. 

To  Tftomas  Erskine,  Linlatlien. 

June  12,  1847. 
One  is  warned  by  Nature  herself  not  to  *  sit  down  by  the  side  of 
sad  thoughts,'  as  my  friend  Oliver  has  it,  and  dwell  voluntarily 
with  what  is  sorrowful  and  painful.  Yet  at  the  same  time  one  has 
to  say  for  oneself— at  least  I  have— that  all  the  good  I  ever  got 
came  to  me  rather  in  the  shape  of  sorrow :  that  there  is  nothmg 
noble  or  godlike  in  this  world  but  has  in  it  something  of  '  infinite 
sadness,*  very  different  indeed  from  what  the  cuiTent  moral  phi- 
losophies represent  it  to  us  ;  and  surely  in  a  time  like  oui-s,  if  in 
any  time,  it  is  good  for  a  man  to  be  driven,  were  it  by  never  such 
harsh  methods,  into  looking  at  this  great  universe  with  his  own 
eyes,  for  himself  and  not  for  another,  and  trying  to  adjust  himself 
truly  there.  By  the  helps  and  traditions  of  othera  he  never  will 
adjust  himself :  others  are  but  offering  him  their  miserable  spy- 
glasses ;  Puseyite,  Presbyterian,  Free  Kirk,  old  Jew,  old  Greek, 
middle-age  Italian,  imperfect,  not  to  say  distorted,  8emi-oi)a(]ue, 
wholly  opaque  and  altogether  melancholy  and  rejectable  spy- 
glasses, one  and  all,  if  one  has  eyes  left.  On  me,  too,  the  pressui'e 
of  these  things  falls  veiy  heavy  :  indeed  I  often  feel  the  loneliest 
of  all  the  sons  of  Adam;  and,  in  the  jargon  of  poor  gi-imacing 
men,  it  is  as  if  one  listened  to  the  jabbering  of  spectres — not  a 
cheerful  situation  at  all  while  it  lasts.  In  fact,  I  am  quite  idle  so 
far  as  the  outer  hand  goes  at  present.  Silent,  not  from  having 
nothing,  but  from  having  infinitely  too  much,  to  say:  out  of 
which  pei-plexity  I  know  no  road  except  that  of  getting  more  and 
more  miserable  in  it,  till  one  is  foixed  to  say  something,  and  so 
carry  on  the  work  a  little,  I  must  not  complain.  I  must  tiy  to 
get  my  work  done  while  the  days  and  years  are.  Nay,  is  not  that 
the  thing  I  would,  before  all  others,  have  chosen,  had  the  uni- 
verse and  all  its  felicities  been  freely  offered  me  to  take  my  share 
from  ?  The  great  soul  of  this  world  is  Just.  With  a  voice  soft  as 
the  harmony  of  8f)heres,  yet  stronger,  sterner,  than  all  thunders, 
this  message  does  now  and  then  reach  us  through  tlie  hollow  jar- 
gon of  things.  This  great  fact  we  live  in,  and  were  made  by.  It 
is  *a  noble  Spartan  Mother'  to  all  of  us  that^dare  be  sons  to  it. 


16  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Courage !  we  must  not  quit  our  shields ;  we  must  return  home 
upon  our  shields,  having  fought  in  the  battle  till  we  died.  That 
is  verily  the  law.  Many  a  time  I  remember  that  of  Dante,  the  in- 
scription on  the  gate  of  hell :  '  Eternal  love  made  me ' — made  even 
me  ;  a  word  which  the  paltry  generations  of  this  time  shriek  over, 
and  do  not  in  the  least  understand.  I  confess  their  'Exeter  Hall,' 
with  its  froth  oceans,  benevolence,  &c.,  &c.,  seems  to  me  amongst 
the  most  degraded  platitudes  this  world  ever  saw  ;  a  more  brutal 
idolatry  perhaps — for  they  are  white  men,  and  their  century  is  the 
nineteenth — than  that  of  Mumbo  Jumbo  itself !  This,  you  per- 
ceive, is  strong  talking.  This  I  have  got  to  say  yet,  or  try  what  I 
can  do  toward  saying  if  I  live.  From  Dan  to  Beersheba  I  find  the 
same  most  mournful  fact  written  down  for  me  ;  mutely  calling  on 
me  to  read  it  and  speak  it  abroad  if  I  be  not  a  lazy  coward  and 
slave,  which  I  would  fain  avoid  being.  .  .  .  It  is  every  way 
very  strange  to  consider  what  'Christianity,'  so  called,  has  grown 
to  within  these  two  centuries,  on  the  Howard  and  Fry  side  as  on 
every  other— a  paltry,  mealy-mouthed  '  religion  of  cowards,'  who 
can  have  no  religion  but  a  sham  one,  which  also,  as  I  believe, 
awaits  its  '  abolition  '  from  the  avenging  power.  If  men  will  turn 
away  their  faces  from  God,  and  set  up  idols,  temporary  phantasms, 
instead  of  the  Eternal  One — alas  !  the  consequences  are  from  of 
old  well  known. 

Religion,  a  religion  that  was  true,  meant  a  rule  of  con- 
duct according  to  the  law  of  God.  Religion,  as  it  existed 
in  England,  had  become  a  thing  of  opinion,  of  emotion 
flowing  over  into  benevolence  as  an  imagined  substitute 
for  justice.  Over*  the  conduct  of  men  in  their  ordinary 
business  it  had  ceased  to  operate  at  all,  and  therefore,  to 
Carlyle,  it  was  a  hollow  appearance,  a  word  without  force 
or  controlling  power  in  it.  Religion  was  obligation,  a 
command  which  bound  men  to  duty,  as  something  which 
they  were  compelled  to  do  under  tremendous  penalties. 
The  modern  world,  even  the  religious  part  of  it,  had  sup- 
posed that  the  grand  aim  was  to  abolish  compulsion,  to 
establish  universal  f  j-eedom,  leaving  each  man  to  the  light 
of  his  own  conscience  or  his  own  will.  Freedom — that 
was  the  word — tKe  glorious  birthright  which,  once  realised, 


Meaning  of  Religion.  17 

was  to  turn  earth  into  paradise.  And  this  was  cant ;  and 
those  who  were  loudest  about  it  could  not  themselves  be- 
lieve it,  but  could  only  pretend  to  believe  it.  In  a  con- 
ditioned existence  like  ours,  freedom  was  impossible.  To 
the  race  as  a  race,  the  alternative  was  work  or  starvation 
— all  were  bound  to  work  in  their  several  ways ;  some 
nuist  work  or  all  would  die  ;  and  the  result  of  the  boasted 
political  liberty  was  an  arrangement  where  the  cunning  or 
the  strong  appropriated  the  lion's  share  of  the  harvest 
without  working,  while  the  multitude  lived  on  by  toil, 
and  toiled  to  get  the  means  of  living.  That  was  the  actual 
outcome  of  the  doctrine  of  liberty,  as  seen  in  existing 
society ;  nor  in  fact  to  any  kind  of  man  anywhere  was 
freedom  possible  in  the  popular  sense  of  the  word.  Each 
one  of  us  was  compassed  round  with  restrictions  on  his 
personal  will,  and  the  wills  even  of  the  strongest  were 
slaves  to  inclination.  The  serf  whose  visible  fetters  were 
struck  off  was  a  serf  still  under  the  law  of  nature,  lie 
might  change  his  master,  but  a  master  he  must  have  of 
some  kind,  or  die  ;  and  to  speak  of  *  emancipation  '  in  and 
by  itself,  as  any  mighty  gain  or  step  in  progress,  was  the 
wildest  of  illusions.  No  *  progress '  would  or  could  be 
made  on  the  lines  of  Eadicals  or  philanthropists.  The 
*  liberty,'  the  only  liberty,  attainable  by  the  multitude  of 
ignorant  mortals,  was  in  being  guided  or  else  compelled 
by  some  one  wiser  than  themselves.  They  gained  nothing 
if  they  exchanged  the  bondage  to  man  for  bondage  to  the 
devil.  It  was  assumed  in  the  talk  of  the  day  that  '  eman- 
cipation' created  manliness,  self  respect,  improvement  of 
character.'     To  Carlyle,  who  looked  at  facts,  all  this  was 

*  Mr.  Gladstone  somewhere  quotes  Homer  in  support  of  this  argument 

riik^w  yap  t    aptry)^  areoaiwrat.  evpvoira  Ztvf 

avipof,  efr'  ay  fiiv  xara  SovXiov  Jiftap  «A}j(ri»'. 

'.Tove  strips  a  man  of  half  his  virtue  on  the  day  whtMi  slavery  lays  hold  on 

him.'    Homer,  be  it  observed,  places  thesie  words  in  the  mouth  of  Eumoius, 

who  was  himself  a  slave.     Eumaius  and  another  slave  were  alono  found  faith- 

VoL.  IV.— 2 


18  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

wind.  Those  '  grinders,'  for  instance,  whom  he  had  seen  in 
that  Manchestei-  cellar,  earning  high  wages,  that  they 
might  live  merrily  for  a  year  or  two,  and  die  at  the  end  of 
them — were  they  improved  ?  Was  freedom  to  kill  them- 
selves for  drink  such  a  blessed  thing  ?  Were  they  reall}^ 
better  oif  than  slaves  who  were  at  least  as  well  cared  for 
as  their  master's  cattle  ?  The  cant  on  this  subject  enraged 
him.  lie,  starting  from  the  other  ]yole^  believing  not  in 
the  rights  of  man,  but  in  the  duties  of  man,  could  see 
nothing  in  it  but  detestable  selfishness  disguised  in  the 
plumage  of  angels — a  shameful  substitute  for  the  neglect  of 
the  human  ties  by  which  man  was  bound  to  man.  '  Facit 
indignatio  versimi?  Wrath  with  the  things  which  he  saw 
around  him  inspired  the  Roman  poet ;  wrath  drove  Car- 
lyle  into  writing  the  ^  Latter-day  Pamphlets.' 

Journal. 
November  1\,  1849. — Went  to  Ireland — wandered  about  there 
all  through  July,  have  half  forcibly  recalled  all  my  remembrances, 
and  thrown  them  down  on  a  paper  since  my  return.  Ugly  spec- 
tacle, sad  health,  sad  humour,  a  thing  unjoyful  to  look  back  upon. 
The  whole  country  figures  in  my  mind  like  a  ragged  coat  or  huge 
beggar's  gaberdine,  not  patched  or  patchable  any  longer;  far 
from  a  joyful  or  beautiful  spectacle.  Went  afterwards  from  An- 
nandale  to  the  Highlands  as  far  as  Glen  Truim  ;  spent  there  ten 
wretched  days.  To  Annandale  a  second  time,  and  thence  home 
after  a  fortnight,  leaving  my  poor  mother  ill  of  a  face  cold,  from 
which  she  is  not  yet  quite  entirely  recovered.  The  last  glimpses 
of  her  at  the  door,  whither  she  had  followed  me,  contrary  to  bar- 
gain ;  these  are  things  that  lie  beyond  speech.  How  lonely  I  am 
now  gi'own  in  the  world  ;  how  hard,  many  times  as  if  I  were  made 
of  stone  !  All  the  old  tremulous  affection  lies  in  me,  but  it  is  as 
if  frozen.  So  mocked,  and  scourged,  and  driven  mad  by  contra- 
dictions, it  has,  as  it  were,  lain  down  in  a  kind  of  iron  sleep.  The 
general  history  of   man?    Somewhat,   I  suppose,    and  yet  not 

ful  to  their  king  when  the  free  citizens  of  Tthaca  had  forgotten  him, 
Eumaeus  was  speaking  of  the  valets  left  at  home  in  their  master's  absence. 
The  free  valets  in  a  modern  house  left  in  similar  circumstances  would  probably 
have  not  been  very  superior  to  them. 


*•  Latter  day  ramphltU?  19 

wholly.  Woi*ds  cannot  express  the  love  and  sorrow  of  my  old 
memories,  chiefly  out  of  boyhood,  as  they  occasionally  rise  upon 
me,  and  I  have  now  no  voice  for  them  at  all.  One's  heart  becomes 
a  grim  Hades,  peopled  only  with  silent  preternaturalism.  No 
more  of  this  !  God  help  me  !  God  soften  me  again — so  far  as 
now  softness  can  be  suitable  for  such  a  soul ;  or  rather  let  me  pray 
for  wisdom,  for  silent  capability  to  manage  this  huge  haggard 
world — at  once  a  Hades  and  an  Elysium,  a  celestial  and  infei-nal 
as  I  see,  which  has  been  given  me  to  inhabit  for  a  time  and  to 
nile  over  as  I  can.  No  lonelier  soul,  I  do  believe,  lies  under  the 
sky  at  this  moment  than  myself.  Masses  of  written  stuff,  which  I 
grudge  a  little  to  burn,  and  trying  to  sort  something  out  of  them 
for  magazine  articles,  series  of  pamphlets,  or  whatever  they  will 
promise  to  tuni  to — does  not  yet  succeed  with  me  at  all :  am  not 
yet  in  the  *  paroxysm  of  clairvoyance  '  which  is  indispensable.  Is 
it  ?  All  these  paper  bundles  were  written  last  summer,  and  are 
wrongish,  every  word  of  them.  Might  serve  as  newspaper  or 
pamphletary  introduction,  overture,  or  accompaniment  to  the  un- 
nanieable  book  I  have  to  write.  In  dissent  from  all  the  world  ; 
in  black  contradiction,  deep  as  the  bases  of  my  life,  to  all  the  phil- 
anthropic, emancipatory,  constitutional,  and  other  anarchic  revo- 
lutionary jargon,  with  which  the  world,  so  far  as  I  can  conceive, 
is  now  full.  Alas  !  and  the  governors  of  the  world  are  as  anarchic 
as  anybody  (witness  the  Canada  Parliament  and  governor  just 
now,  witness,  &c.  &c.,  all  over  the  world)  ;  not  pleasing  at  all  to 
be  in  a  minority  of  one  in  regard  to  everything.  The  worst  is, 
however,  I  am  not  yet  true  to  myself ;  I  cannot  yet  call  in  my 
wandering  truant  being,  and  bid  it  wholly  set  to  the  work  fit  for 
it  in  this  hour.  Oh,  let  me  persist,  pei-sist— may  the  heavens 
grant  mo  power  to  persist  in  that  till  I  do  succeed  in  it ! 

November  16,  1849. — A  sad  feature  in  employments  like  mine, 
that  you  cannot  cairy  them  on  continuously.  My  work  needs  all 
to  be  done  with  my  nerves  in  a  kind  of  blaze ;  such  a  state  of  soul 
and  body  as  would  soon  kill  me,  if  not  intermitted.  I  have  to  rest 
accordingly ;  to  stop  and  sink  into  total  coUapse,  the  getting  out 
of  which  again  is  a  labour  of  labours.  Papers  on  the  'Negro 
Question,*  fraction  of  said  rubbish  coming  out  in  the  next  *  Fraser.' 

A  paper  on  the  Kegro  or  digger  question,  properly  the 
first  of  the  '  Latter-day  Pamplilets,'  was  Carlyle's  declara- 
tion of  war  against  modern  Radicalism.   Hitherto,  though 


20  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

his  orthodoxy  was  questionable,  the  Radicals  had  been 
glad  to  claim  him  as  belonging  to  them  ;  and  if  Eadical- 
ism  meant  an  opinion  that  modern  society  required  to  be 
reconstituted  from  the  root,  he  had  been,  was,  and  re- 
mained the  most  thoroughgoing  of  them  all.  His  objec- 
tion was  to  the  cant  of  Radicalism  ;  the  philosophy  of  it, 
'•  bred  of  philanthropy  and  the  Dismal  Science,'  the  pur- 
port of  which  was  to  cast  the  atoms  of  human  society 
adrift,  mocked  with  the  name  of  liberty,  to  sink  or  swim 
as  they  could,  ^^egro  emancipation  had  been  the  special 
boast  and  glory  of  the  new  theory  of  universal  happiness. 
The  twenty  millions  of  indemnity  and  the  free  West  In- 
dies had  been  chanted  and  celebrated  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  from  press  and  platform.  Weekly,  almost  daily, 
the  English  newspapers  were  crowing  over  the  Americans, 
flinging  in  their  teeth  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
blowing  up  in  America  itself  a  flame  which  was  ripening 
towards  a  furious  war,  while  the  result  of  the  experiment 
so  far  had  been  the  material  ruin  of  colonies  once  the 
most  precious  that  we  had,  and  the  moral  ruin  of  the 
blacks  themselves,  who  were  rotting  away  in  sensuous  idle- 
ness amidst  the  wrecks  of  the  plantations.  He  was  touch- 
ing the  shield  with  the  point  of  his  lance  when  he  chose 
this  sacredly  sensitive  subject  for  his  first  onslaught.  He 
did  not  mean  that  the  '  Niggers  '  should  have  been  kept 
as  cattle,  and  sold  as  cattle  at  their  owners'  pleasure. 
He  did  mean  that  they  ought  to  have  been  treated  as 
human  beings,  for  whose  souls  and  bodies  the  whites  were 
responsible;  that  they  should  have  been  placed  in  a  posi- 
tion suited  to  their  capacity,  like  that  of  the  English  serf 
under  the  Plantagenets ;  protected  against  ill-usage  by 
law  ;  attached  to  the  soil ;  not  allowed  to  be  idle,  but 
cared  for  themselves,  their  wives  and  their  children,  in 
health,  in  sickness,  and  in  old  age. 

He  said  all   this ;  but  he  said  it  fiercely,  scornfully,  in 


'' Latter  day  Pa7ii;phlets.^  21 

tlie  tone  which  could  least  conciliate  attention.  Black 
Quashee  and  his  friends  were  spattered  with  ridicule  which 
stmig  the  more  from  the  justice  of  it.  The  following  pas- 
sage could  least  he  pardoned  because  the  truth  which  it 
contained  could  least  be  denied  : — 

Dead  corpses,  the  rotting  botly  of  a  brother  man,  whom  fate  or 
unjust  men  have  killed,  this  is  not  a  pleasant  spectacle.  But  what 
say  you  to  the  dead  soul  of  a  man  in  a  body  which  still  pretends 
to  be  vigorously  alive,  and  can  drink  rum?  An  idle  white  gen- 
tleman is  not  pleasant  to  me,  but  what  say  you  to  an  idle  black 
gentleman  with  his  rum  bottle  in  his  hand  (for  a  little  additional 
pumpkin  you  can  have  red  hemngs  and  rum  in  Demerara),  no 
breeches  on  his  body,  pumpkin  at  discretion,  and  the  fi-uitfullest 
region  of  the  earth  going  back  to  jungle  round  him  ?  Such  things 
the  sun  looks  down  upon  in  oui*  fine  times,  and  I  for  one  would 
rather  have  no  hand  in  them.  .  .  .  Yes — this  is  the  eternal 
law  of  nature  for  a  man,  my  beneficent  Exeter  Hall  fiicnds  ;  this, 
that  he  shall  be  permitted,  encouraged,  and,  if  need  be,  comj^elled 
to  do  what  work  the  Maker  of  him  has  intended  for  this  world. 
Not  that  he  should  eat  pumpkin  with  never  such  felicity  in  the 
West  India  Islands,  is  or  can  be  the  blessedness  of  our  black 
friend  ;  but  that  he  should  do  useful  work  there,  according  as  the 
gifts  have  been  bestowed  on  him  for  that.  And  his  own  happi- 
ness and  that  of  others  round  him  will  alone  be  possible  by  his 
and  their  getting  into  such  a  relation  that  this  can  be  pei-mitted 
him,  and  in  case  of  need  that  this  can  be  compelled  him.  I  beg 
you  to  understand  this,  for  you  seem  to  have  a  little  forgotten  it ; 
and  there  lie  a  thousand  influences  in  it  not  quite  useless  for 
Exeter  Hall  at  present.  The  idle  black  man  in  the  "West  Indies 
had  not  long  since  the  right,  and  will  again,  under  better  form,  if 
it  please  Heaven,  have  the  right— actually  the  first  *  right  of  man ' 
for  an  indolent  peraon — to  be  compelled  to  work  as  he  was  fit,  and 
to  do  the  Maker's  will  who  had  constmcted  him  with  such  and 
such  capabilities  and  prefigurements  of  capabihty.  And  I  inces- 
santly pray  Heaven  that  all  men,  the  whitest  alike  and  the  blackest, 
the  richest  and  the  poorest,  had  attained  precisely  the  same  right, 
the  Divine  right  of  being  compelled  (if  *  permitted  *  will  not 
answer)  to  do  what  work  they  are  api)ointed  for,  and  not  to  go 
idle  another  minute  in  a  life  which  is  so  short,  and  where  idleness 
80  soon  runs  to  putrescence.    Alas  !  we  had  then  a  perfect  world, 


22  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

and  the  Millennium,  and  tlie  '  organisation  of  labour '  and  reign 
of  complete  blessedness  for  all  workers  and  men  had  then  arrived, 
which  in  their  own  poor  districts  of  this  planet,  as  we  all  lament 
to  know,  it  is  very  far  from  having  got  done. 

I  once  asked  Carlyle  if  he  liad  ever  thought  of  going 
into  Parliament,  for  I  knew  that  the  opportunity  must 
liave  been  offered  him.  ^  Well,'  he  said,  '  I  did  think  of 
it  at  the  time  of  the  ''  Latter-day  Pamphlets."  I  felt  that 
nothing  could  prevent  me  from  getting  up  in  the  House 
and  saying  all  that.'  He  was  powerful,  but  he  was  not 
powerful  enough  to  have  discharged  with  his  single  voice 
the  vast  volume  of  conventional  electricity  with  which  the 
collective  wisdom  of  the  nation  was,  and  remains,  charged. 
It  is  better  that  his  thoughts  should  have  been  committed 
to  enduring  print,  where  they  remain  to  be  reviewed  here- 
after by  the  light  of  fact. 

The  article  on  the  '  Nigger  question '  gave,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  universal  offence.  Many  of  his  old 
admirers  drew  back  after  this,  and  *  walked  no  more  with 
him.'  John  Mill  replied  fiercely  in  the  same  magazine. 
They  had  long  ceased  to  be  intimate ;  they  were  hence- 
forth '  rent  asunder,'  not  to  be  again  united.  Each  w^ent 
his  own  course  ;  but  neither  Mill  nor  Carlyle  forgot  that 
they  had  once  been  friends,  and  each  to  the  last  spoke  of 
the  other  with  affectionate  regret. 

The  Pamphlets  commenced  at  the  beginning  of  1850, 
and  went  on  month  after  month,  each  separately  published, 
no  magazine  daring  to  become  responsible  for  them.  The 
first  was  on  '  The  Present  Time,'  on  the  advent  and  pros- 
pects of  Democracy.  The  revolutions  of  1848  had  been 
the  bankruptcy  of  falsehood,  '  the  tumbling  out  of  impos- 
tures into  the  street.'  The  problem  left  before  the  world 
was  how  nations  were  hereafter  to  be  governed.  The 
English  people  imagined  that  it  could  be  done  by  '  suf- 
frages '  and  the  ballot-box ;  a  system  under  which  St.  Paul 


'^  Latter-day  FampfdeU.^  23 

and  Judas  Iscariot  would  each  have  an  equal  vote,  and  one 
would  have  as  much  power  as  the  other.  This  was  like 
saying  that  when  a  ship  was  going  on  a  voyage  round  the 
world  the  crew  were  to  be  brought  together  to  elect  their 
own  officers,  and  vote  the  course  which  was  to  be  followed. 

Unanimity  on  board  ship— yes  indeed,  the  ship's  crew  may  be 
very  nnanimous,  which  doubtless  for  the  time  being  will  be  veiy 
comfortable  for  the  ship's  crew,  and  to  their  phantasm  captain,  if 
they  have  one.  But  if'  the  tack  they  imanimously  steer  upon  is 
guiding  them  into  the  belly  of  the  abyss,  it  will  not  profit  them 
much.  Ships  accordingly  do  not  use  the  ballot-box,  and  they  re- 
ject the  phantasm  species  of  captains.  One  wishes  much  some 
other  entities,  since  all  entities  lie  undei'  the  same  rigorous  set  of 
laws,  could  be  brought  to  show  as  much  wisdom  and  sense  at  least 
of  self-preservation,  the  first  command  of  nature. 

The  words  in  italics  contain  tlie  essence  of  Carlyle's 
teaching.  If  they  are  true,  the  inference  is  equally  true 
that  in  Democracy  there  can  be  no  finality.  If  the  laws 
are  fixed  under  which  nations  are  allowed  to  prosper,  men 
fittest  by  capacity  and  experience  to  read  those  laws  must 
be  placed  in  command,  and  the  ballot-box  never  will  and 
never  can  select  the  fittest ;  it  will  select  the  sham  fittest, 
or  the  U7i^ttest  The  suffrage,  the  right  of  every  man  to 
a  voice  in  the  selection  of  his  rulers,  was,  and  is,  the  first 
article  of  the  Radical  Magna  Charta,  the  a7'ticulu8  stantls 
vel  cadeQith  lieipuhlwce,  and  is  so  accepted  by  every 
modern  Liberal  statesman.  Carlyle  met  it  with  a  denial 
as  complete  and  scornful  as  Luther  flung  at  Tetzel  and  his 
Indulgences — not,  however,  with  the  same  approval  from 
those  whom  he  addressed.  Luther  found  the  grass  dry 
and  ready  to  kindle.  Tlie  belief  which  Carlyle  assailed 
was  alive  and  green  with  hope  and  vigour. 

Journal, 
Fehruaiy  7,  1850. — Trying  to  write  my  *  Latter-day  Pamphlets.* 
Such  foi-m,  after  infinite  haggling,  has  the  thing  now  assumed. 
Some  twelve  pamphlets,  if  I  can  but  get  them  written  at  all ; 


24  Ccvdyle's  Life  hi  London. 

then  leave  the  matter  lying.  No.  1  came  out  a  week  ago  ;  yields 
nio  a  most  confused  response.  Little  save  abuse  hitherto,  and  the 
sale  reported  to  be  vigorous.  Abuse  enough,  and  almost  that  only, 
is  what  I  have  to  look  for  with  confidence.  Nigger  article  has 
roused  the  ire  of  all  philanthroiDists  to  a  quite  unexpected  pitch. 
Among  other  very  poor  attacks  on  it  was  one  in  '  Fraser ; '  most 
shrill,  thin,  poor  and  insignificant,  which  I  was  surprised  to  learn 
X3roceeded  from  John  Mill.  .  .  .  He  has  neither  told  me  nor 
reminded  me  of  anything  that  I  did  not  very  well  know  before- 
hand. No  use  in  writing  that  kind  of  criticism.  For  some  years 
back  Mill,  who  once  volunteered  a  close  constant  intimacy  for  a 
long  time,  has  volunteered  a  complete  withdrawal  of  himself ;  and 
now,  instead  of  reverent  discipleship,  which  he  asj^ired  to,  seems  to 
have  taken  the  function  of  getting  up  to  contradict  whatever  I  say. 
Curious  enough.  But  poor  Mill's  fate  in  various  ways  has  been 
very  tragic.  His  misery,  when  I  chance  to  see  him  in  the  street 
or  otherwise  (for  we  never  had  a  M'ord  of  quarrel),  appeals  to  my 
pity  if  any  anger  was  rising.  .  .  .  The  Pamphlets  are  all  as 
bad  as  need  be.  If  I  could  but  get  my  meaning  exi^laiued  at  all, 
I  should  care  little  in  what  style  it  Avas.  But  my  state  of  health 
and  heart  is  highly  unfavourable.  Nay,  worst  of  all,  a  kind  of  stony 
indifference  is  spreading  over  me.  I  am  getting  weary  of  suffer- 
ing, feel  as  if  I  could  sit  down  in  it  and  say,  '  Well,  then,  I  shall 
soon  die  at  any  rate.'  Truly  all  human  things,  fames,  promotions, 
pleasures,  prosperities,  seem  to  me  inexpressibly  contemptible  at 
times. 

The  second  pamphlet,  on  '  Model  Prisons,'  was  as  savage 
as  the  first.  Society,  conscious  at  heart  that  it  was  itself 
unjust,  and  did  not  mean  to  mend  itself,  was  developing 
out  of  its  uneasiness  a  universal  '  Scoundrel  Protection ' 
sentiment.  Society  was  concluding  that  inequalities  of 
condition  were  inevitable ;  that  those  who  suffered  under 
them,  and  rebelled,  could  not  fairly  be  punished,  but  were 
to  be  looked  upon  as  misguided  brethren  suffering  under 
mental  disorders,  to  be  cured  in  moral  hospitals,  called  by 
euphemism  Houses  of  Correction.  '  Pity  for  human 
calamity,'  the  pamphlet  said,  '  was  very  beautiful,  but  the 
deep  oblivion  of  the  law  of  right  and  wrong,  the  indiscrim- 


*  Latter-day  Pampldets?  25 

inate  mashing  up  of  riglit  and  wrong  into  a  patent  treacle, 
was  not  beautiful  at  all.' 

Wishing  to  see  the  system  at  work  with  his  own  eyes, 
Carlyle  had  visited  the  Millbank  Penitentiary.  He  found 
1,200  prisoners,  '  notable  murderesses  among  them,'  in 
airy  apartments  of  perfect  cleanliness,  comfortably  warmed 
and  clothed,  quietly,  and  not  too  severely,  picking  oakum ; 
their  diet,  bread,  soup,  meat,  all  superlatively  excellent. 
He  saw  a  literary  Chartist  rebel  in  a  private  court,  master 
of  his  own  time  and  spiritual  resources ;  and  he  felt  that 
'  he  himself,  so  left  with  paper,  ink,  and  all  taxes  and 
botherations  shut  out  from  him,  could  have  written  such  a 
book  as  no  reader  w^ould  ever  get  from  him.'  Pie  looked 
at  felon  after  felon.  He  saw  '  ape  faces,  imp  faces,  angry 
dog  faces,  heavy  sullen  ox  faces,  degraded  underfoot  per- 
verse creatures,  sons  of  greedy  mutinous  darkness.'  '  To 
give  the  owners  of  such  faces  their  '  due '  could  be  at- 
tempted only  where  there  was  an  effort  to  give  every  one 
his  due,  and  to  be  fair  all  round ;  and  as  this  was  not  to 
be  thought  of,  '  they  were  to  be  reclaimed  by  the  method 
of  love.'  *  Hopeless  for  evermore  such  a  project.'  And 
these  fine  hospitals  were  maintained  by  rates  levied  on 
the  honest  outside,  who  were  struggling  to  support  them- 
selves without  becoming  felons — 'rates  on  the  poor  ser- 
vants of  God  and  Her  Majesty,  who  were  still  trying  to  serve 
both,  to  boil  right  soup  for  the  Devil's  declared  elect.' 

He  did  not  expect  that  his  protests  would  be  attended 
to  then,  but  in  twenty  years  he  thought  there  might  be 
more  agreement  with  him.  This,  like  many  other  proph- 
ecies of  his,  has  proved  true.  We  hang  and  flog  now  with 
small  outcry  and  small  compunction.  But  the  ferocity 
with  which  he  struck  right  and  left  at  honoured  names, 
the  contempt  which  he  heaped  on  an  amiable,  if  not  a 
wise  experiment,  gave  an  impression  of  his  own  character 
as  false  as  it  was  unpleasant.     He  was  really  the  most  ten- 


26  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

der-hearted  of  men.  His  savageness  was  but  affection 
turned  sour,  and  what  lie  said  was  the  opposite  of  what  he 
did.  Many  a  time  I  have  remonstrated  wlien  I  saw  him 
give  a  shilling  to  some  wretch  with  '  Devil's  elect '  on  his 
forehead.  'No  doubt  he  is  a  son  of  Gehenna/  Carljle 
would  say ;  '  but  you  can  see  it  is  very  low  water  with  him. 
This  modern  life  hardens  our  hearts  more  than  it  should.' 
On  the  Pamphlets  rushed.  The  third  was  on  '  Down- 
ing Street  and  Modern  Government.'  Lord  John  Russell, 
I  remember,  plaintively  spoke  of  it  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  fourth  was  on  a  '  New  Downing  Street,  such 
as  it  might  and  ought  to  become.'  The  fifth,  on  '  Stump 
Oratory,'  was  perhaps  the  most  important  of  the  set,  for  it 
touched  a  problem  of  moment  then,  and  now  every  day 
becoming  of  greater  moment ;  for  the  necessary  tendency 
of  Democracy  is  to  throw  the  power  of  the  State  into  the 
hands  of  eloquent  speakers,  and  eloquent  speakers  have 
never  since  the  world  began  been  wise  statesmen.  Car- 
lyle  had  not  read  Aristotle's  '  Politics,'  but  he  had  arrived 
in  his  own  road  at  Aristotle's  conclusions.  All  forms  of 
government,  Aristotle  says,  are  ruined  by  parasites  and 
flatterers.  The  parasite  of  the  monarch  is  the  favourite 
who  flatters  his  vanity  and  hides  the  truth  from  him. 
The  parasite  of  a  democracy  is  tlie  orator ;  the  people  are 
his  masters,  and  he  rules  by  pleasing  them.  He  dares  not 
tell  them  unpleasant  truths,  lest  he  lose  his  popularity  ;  he 
must  call  their  passions  emotions  of  justice,  and  their 
prejudices  conclusions  of  reason.  He  dares  not  look  facts 
in  the  face,  and  facts  prove  too  strong  for  him.  To  the 
end  of  his  life  Carlyle  thouglit  with  extreme  anxiety  on 
this  subject,  and,  as  will  be  seen,  had  more  to  say  about  it. 
•  I  need  not  follow  the  Pamphlets  in  detail.  There  were 
to  have  been  twelve  originally  ;  one,  I  think,  on  the  '  Ex- 
odus from  Houndsditch,'  for  he  occasionally  reproached 
himself  afterwards  for  over-reticence  on  that  subject.     He 


'  Latter -'f't;/  Pamphlets.''  27 

was  not  likely  to  liave  hwn  deterred  by  fear  of  giviiiij^ 
offence.  But  the  arguments  against  speaking  out  about  it 
were  always  as  present  with  him  as  the  arguments  for 
openness.  Perhaps  he  concluded,  on  the  whole,  that  the 
good  which  he  might  do  would  not  outbalance  the  pain  he 
wonld  inllict.  The  series,  at  any  rate,  ended  with  the 
eighth — upon  '  Jesuitism,'  a  word  to  which  he  gave  a 
wider  significance  than  technically  belongs  to  it.  England 
supposed  that  it  had  repudiated  sufficiently  Ignatius  Loyola 
and  the  Company  of  Jesus;  but,  little  as  England  knew 
it,  Ignatius's  peculiar  doctrines  had  gone  into  its  heart, 
and  were  pouring  through  all  its  veins  and  arteries.  Jesu- 
itism to  Carlyle  was  the  deliberate  shutting  of  the  eyes  to 
truth ;  the  deliberate  insincerity  which,  if  persisted  in, 
becomes  itself  sincere.  You  choose  to  tell  a  lie  because, 
for  various  reasons,  it  is  convenient ;  you  defend  it  with 
argument — till  at  length  yon  are  given  over  to  believe  it 
— and  the  religious  side  of  your  mind  being  thus  penally 
paralysed ;  morality  becomes  talk  and  conscience  becomes 
emotion  ;  and  your  actual  life  has  no  authoritative  guide 
left  but  personal  selfishness.  Thus,  by  the  side  of  a  pro- 
fession of  Christianity,  England  had  adopted  for  a  work- 
ing creed  Political  Economy,  which  is  the  contradictory  of 
Christianity,  imagining  that  it  could  believe  both  together. 
Christianity  tells  us  that  we  are  not  to  care  for  the  things 
of  the  earth.  Political  economy  is  concerned  with  nothing 
else.  Christianity  says  that  the  desire  to  make  money  is 
tlie  root  of  all  evil.  Political  economy  says  that  the  more 
<  ach  man  struggles  to  'make  money'  the  better  for  the 
commonwealth.  Christianity  says  that  it  is  the  business 
of  the  magistrate  to  execute  justice  and  maintain  truth. 
Political  economy  (or  the  system  of  government  founded 
upon  it)  limits  'justice'  to  the  keeping  of  the  peace,  de- 
clares that  the  magistrate  has  nothing  to  do  with  main- 
taining truth,  and  that  every  man  must  be  left  free  to 


28  CarlyWe  Life  in  London. 

hold  Ills  own  opinions  and  advance  liis  own  interests  in 
any  way  that  he  pleases,  short  of  fraud  and  violence. 

Jesuitism,  or  the  art  of  finding  reasons  for  w^iatever  we 
wish  to  believe,  had  enabled  Englishmen  to  persuade 
themselves  that  both  these  theories  of  life  could  be  true  at 
the  same  time.  They  kept  one  for  Sundays,  the  other  for 
tlie  working  days  ;  and  the  practical  moral  code  thus 
evolved,  Carlyle  throws  out  in  a  w^ld  freak  of  humour, 
comparable  only  to  the  memorable  epitaph  on  the  famous 
Baron  in  '  Sartor  Resartus.'  It  is  placed  in  the  mouth  of 
his  imaginary  friend,  Sauerteig,  who  is  generally  responsi- 
ble for  every  extravagant  utterance. 

Pig  Pldlosophy. 

If  the  inestimable  talent  of  literature  should,  in  these  swift 
days  of  progress,  be  extended  to  the  brute  creation,  having  fairly 
taken  in  all  the  human,  so  that  swine  and  oxen  could  communicate 
to  us  on  paper  what  they  thought  of  the  universe,  then  might 
curious  results,  not  uninstructive  to  some  of  us,  ensue.  Suppos- 
ing swine  (I  mean  four-footed  swine)  of  sensibility  and  superior 
logical  parts  had  attained  such  culture,  and  could,  after  survey 
and  reflection,  jot  down  for  us  their  notion  of  the  universe  and  of 
their  interests  and  duties  there,  might  it  not  well  interest  a  dis- 
cerning public,  perhaps  in  unexpected  ways,  and  give  a  stimulus 
to  the  languishing  book  trade  ?  The  votes  of  all  creatures,  it  is 
understood  at  present,  ought  to  be  had,  that  you  may  legislate  for 
them  with  better  insight.  '  How  can  you  govern  a  thing,'  say 
many,  '  without  first  asking  its  vote  ?  '  Unless,  indeed,  you  already 
chance  to  know  its  vote,  and  even  something  more — namely,  what 
you  are  to  think  of  its  vote,  what  it  wants  by  its  vote,  and,  still 
more  important,  what  Nature  wants,  which  latter  at  the  end  of  the 
account  is  the  only  thing  that  will  be  got.  Pig  propositions  in  a 
vague  form  are  somewhat  as  follows  :  — 

1.  The  universe,  so  far  as  sane  conjecture  can  go,  is  an  immeas- 
urable swine's  trough,  consisting  of  solid  and  liquid  and  of  other 
contrasts  and  kinds  ;  especially  consisting  of  attainable  and  unat- 
tainable, the  latter  in  immensely  greater  quantities  for  most  pigs. 

2.  Moral  evil  is  unattainability  of  pig's  wash  ;  moral  good,  at- 
tainability of  ditto. 


''Latter-day  PanvpJdeta.^  29 

3.  What  is  Paradise  or  the  State  of  Innocence?  Paradiso, 
called  also  State  of  Innocence,  Age  of  Gold,  and  other  names,  was 
(according  to  i)igs  of  weak  judgment)  unlimited  attainability  of 
pig's  wash ;  perfect  fullilment  of  one's  wishes,  so  that  pigs' 
imagination  could  not  outrun  reality :  a  fable  and  an  imijossi- 
bility,  as  pigs  of  sense  now  see. 

4.  Define  the  whole  duty  of  pigs.  It  is  the  mission  of  universal 
pighood  to  diminish  the  quantity  of  unattainable,  and  increase 
that  of  attainable.  All  knowledge  and  desii-e  and  effort  ought  to 
be  directed  thither,  and  thither  only.  Pig  science,  pig  enthusiasm 
and  devotion  have  this  one  aim.     It  is  the  whole  duty  of  pigs. 

5.  Pig  poetry  ought  to  consist  of  universal  recognition  of  the 
excellence  of  pig's  wash  and  ground  barley,  and  the  felicity  of 
pigs  whose  trough  is  in  order,  and  who  have  had  enough. 
Hrumph ! 

6.  The  pig  knows  the  weather.  Ho  ought  to  look  out  what 
kind  of  weather  it  will  be. 

7.  Who  made  the  pig  ?     Unknown.     Perhaps  the  pork-butcher. 

8.  Have  you  law  and  justice  in  Pigdom  ?  Pigs  of  observation 
have  discerned  that  there  is,  or  was  once  supposed  to  be,  a  thing 
called  justice.  Undeniably,  at  least  there  is  a  sentiment  in  pig 
nature  called  indignation,  revenge,  <fec.,  <S:c.,.  which,  if  one  pig 
provoke  another,  comes  out  in  a  more  or  less  destructive  manner ; 
hence  laws  are  necessaiy — amazing  quantities  of  laws.  For  quar- 
relling is  attended  with  loss  of  blood,  of  life — at  any  rate,  with 
frightful  effusion  of  the  general  stock  of  hog's  wash,  and  ruin, 
temporary  ruin,  to  large  sections  of  the  universal  swine's  trough. 
Wherefore  let  justice  be  observed,  so  tliat  quarrelling  be  avoided. 

9.  What  is  justice?  Your  own  sliare  of  the  general  swine's 
trough  ;  not  any  j^ortion  of  my  share. 

10.  But  what  is  *  my  share  '  ?  Ah  !  there,  in  fact,  lies  the  gi-and 
difficulty,  upon  which  pig  science,  meditating  this  long  while,  can 
settle  aV)solutely  nothing.  My  share  !  Hnimph  !  my  share  is,  on 
the  whole,  whatever  I  can  contiive  to  get  without  being  hanged 
or  sent  to  the  hulks.  For  there  are  gibbets,  treadmills,  I  need 
not  tell  you,  and  rules  which  lawyers  have  prescribed. 

11.  Who  are  lawyers?  Servants  of  God,  appointed  revealers  of 
the  oracles  of  God,  who  read  off  to  us  from  day  to  day  what  is  the 
eternal  commandment  of  God  in  reference  to  the  mutual  claims  of 
His  creatures  in  this  world. 

12.  Where  do  they  find  that  written  ?    In  Coke  upon  Littleton. 


30  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

13.  Who  made  Coke  ?  Unknown.  The  maker  of  Coke's  wig  is 
discoverable. 

What  became   of   Coke?     Died.      And   then?     Went    to    the 

undertakers.     Went  to  the But  we  must  pull  up.     Sauer- 

teig's  fierce  humour,  confounding  even  farther  in  his  haste  the 
four-footed  with  the  two-footed  animal,  rushes  into  wilder  and 
wilder  forms  of  satirical  torch-dancing,  and  threatens  to  end  in  a 
universal  Eape  of  the  Wigs,  which,  in  a  person  of  his  character, 
looks  ominous  and  dangerous.  Here,  for  example,  is  his  51st  prop- 
osition, as  he  calls  it : — 

51.  What  are  Bishops?     Overseers  of  souls. 

What  is  a  soul  ?     The  thing  that  keeps  the  body  alive. 

How  do  they  oversee  that  ?  They  tie  on  a  kind  of  aprons,  pub- 
lish charges — I  believe  they  pray  dreadfully — macerate  themselves 
nearly  dead  with  continued  grief  that  they  cannot  in  the  least 
oversee  it. 

'  And  are  much  honoured  ?  '     By  the  wise,  very  much. 

52.  '  Define  the  Church.'     I  had  rather  not. 

*  Do  you  believe  in  a  future  state  ?  '     Yes,  surely. 

*  What  is  it  ?  '     Heaven,  so  called. 

'  To  everybody  ?  '     I  understand  so — hope  so. 
'  What  is  it  thought  to  be  ?  '     Hrumph  ! 
'  No  Hell,  then,  at  all  ?  '     Hrumph  ! 

This  was  written  thirty-three  years  ago,  when  political 
economy  was  our  sovereign  political  science.  As  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  political  power  has  changed,  the 
science  has  changed  along  with  it.  Statesmen  have  dis- 
covered that  laissez-faire^  though  doubtless  true  in  a 
better  state  of  existence,  is  inapplicable  to  our  imperfect 
planet.  They  have  attempted,  with  Irish  Land  Bills, 
(fee,  to  regulate  in  some  degree  the  distribution  of  the 
hog's  wash,  and  will  doubtless,  as  democracy  extends,  do 
more  in  that  direction.  But  when  the  Pamphlets  ap- 
peared, this  and  the  other  doctrines  enunciated  in  them 
were  received  with  astonished  indignation.  '  Carlyle 
taken  to  whisky '  was  the  popular  impression ;  or  perhaps 
he  had  gone  mad.  *  Punch,'  the  most  friendly  to  him  of 
all  the  London  periodicals,  protested  affectionately.     The 


^iMtterday  Pamphlets?  31 

delinquent  was  brought  up  for  trial  before  him,  I  think 
for  injuring  his  reputation.  He  was  admonished,  but 
stood  impenitent,  and  even  ^called  the  worthy  magistrate 
a  windbag  and  a  sham.'  I  suppose  it  was  Thackeray  who 
wrote  this,  or  some  other  kind  friend,  who  feared,  like 
Emerson,  *  that  the  world  would  turn  its  back  on  him.' 
lie  was  under  no  illusion  himself  as  to  the  effect  which  ho 
was  producing. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

April  29,  1&50. 

The  barking  babble  of  the  world  continues  in  regard  to  these 

Pamphlets,  hardly  any  wise  word  at  all  reaching  me  iu  reference 

to  them  ;  but  I  must  say  out  my  say  in  one  shape  or  another,  and 

will,  if  Heaven  help  me,  not  minding  that  at  all.     The  world  is 

not  here  for  my  objects.     The  world  is  here  for  its  own  ;  but  let 

me. too  be  here  for  my  own.     No  human  word,  or  hardly  any,  once 

in  the  month,  is  uttered  to  me  by  any  fellow-mortal — a  state  of 

things  I  have  long  bewailed,  but  learn  ever  better  to  endure,  and 

silently  draw  inferences  from. 

The  prettiest  personal  feature  during  the  appearance  of 
the  Pamphlets  was  a  small  excursion  for  *a  day  in  the 
country,'  which  Carlyle  and  his  wife  made  together,  when 
the  seventh,  on  Hudson's  statue,  was  off  his  hands.  They 
went  by  rail  to  Richmond  on  a  bright  May  morning,  and 
thence  by  omnibus  to  Ham  Common,  where  they  strolled 
about  among  the  trees  and  the  gorse.  They  had  their 
luncheon  with  them  in  the  shape  of  a  packet  of  biscuits 
They  bought  a  single  bottle  of  soda-water.  He  had  his 
cigar-case  and  a  match-box.  It  was  like  the  old  days  at 
Craigenputtock,  when,  after  an  article  was  finished,  they 
used  to  drive  off  together  in  the  ancient  gig  for  a  holiday, 
with  the  tobacco-pipe  in  a  pocket  of  the  apron. 

The  last  Pamphlet  appeared  in  July. 

*  Latter-day  Pamphlets '  (he  says)  either  dead  or  else  abused  and 
execrated  by  all  mortals — nan  Jlocci  facio,  comparatively  speaking. 
Had  a  letter  from  Emerson  explaining  that  I  was  quite  wrong  to 


32  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

get  so  angry,  &c.  I  really  value  these  savage  utterances  of  mine 
at  nothing.  I  am  glad  only — and  this  is  an  inalienable  benefit — 
that  they  are  out  of  me.  Stump  orator,  Parliament,  Jesuitism, 
&c.,  were  and  are  a  real  deliverance  to  me. 

The  outcry,  curiously,  liad  no  effect  on  the  sale  of 
Carlyle's* works.  He  had  a  certain  public,  slowly  grow- 
ing, which  bought  everything  that  he  published.  The 
praise  of  the  newspapers  never,  he  told  me,  sensibly  in- 
creased the  circulation  ;  their  blanie  never  sensibly  dimin- 
ished it.  His  unknown  disciples  believed  in  him  as  a 
teacher  whom  they  were  to  learn  f  j'om,  not  to  criticise. 
There  were  then  about  three  thousand  who  bought  his 
books.  Now,  who  can  say  how  many  there  are  ?  He,  for 
himself,  had  delivered  his  soul,  and  was  comparatively  at 
rest. 

I  am  not  so  heavy-laden  to-day  (he  writes,  when  it  was  over)  as 
I  have  been  for  many  a  day.  I  have  money  enough  (no  beggarly 
terrors  about  finance  now  at  all).  I  have  still  some  strength,  the 
chance  of  some  years  of  time.  If  I  be  true  to  myself,  how  can  the 
whole  posterity  of  Adam,  and  its  united  follies  and  miseries,  quite 
make  shipwreck  of  me  ? 

The  relief,  as  might  be  expected,  was  not  of  very  long; 
continuance. 


CHAPTER  XVIIL 

A.D.  1850.     ^T.  55-56. 

Reaction  from  'Latter-day  Pamphlets' — Acquaintance  with  Sir 
Robert  Peel— Dinner  in  Whitehall  Place— Ball  at  Bath  House 
— Peel's  death — Estimate  of  Peel's  character — Visit  to  South 
Wales — Savage  Landor — Merthyr  Tydvil — Scotsbrig  —  De- 
spondency— Visits  to  Keswick  and  Coniston — The  Gmnge — 
Return  to  London. 

In  the  intervals  between  Carlyle's  larger  works,  a  dis- 
charge of  spiritual  bile  was  always  necessary.  Modern 
English  life,  and  the  opinions  popularly  ciirrent  anjong 
men,  were  a  constant  provocation  to  him.  The  one  object 
of  everyone  (a  very  few  chosen  souls  excepted)  seemed  to 
be  to  make  money,  and  with  money  increase  his  own  idle 
luxury.  The  talk  of  people,  whether  written  or  spoken, 
was  an  extravagant  and  never-ceasing  laudation  of  an  age 
which  was  content  to  be  so  employed,  as  if  the  like  of  it 
had  never  been  seen  upon  earth  before.  The  thinkers  in 
their  closets,  the  politicians  on  platform  or  in  Parliament, 
reviews  and  magazines,  weekly  newspapers  and  dailies, 
sang  all  the  same  note,  that  there  had  never  since  the 
world  began  been  a  time  when  the  English  part  of  man- 
kind had  been  happier  or  better  than  they  were  then. 
They  had  only  to  be  let  alone,  to  have  more  and  more 
liberty,  and  fix  their  eyes  steadily  on  '  increasing  the  quan- 
tity of  attainable  hog's  wash,'  and  there  would  be  such  a 
world  as  no  philosophy  had  ever  dreamt  of.  Something 
of  this  kind  really  was  the  prevalent  creed  thirty  years 
ago,  under  tlie  sudden  increase  of  wealth  which  set  iu  with 
Vol.  IV— 3 


34  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

railways  and  free  trade  ;  and  to  Carlyle  it  appeared  a  false 
creed  tliroiigliont,  from  principle  to  inference.  In  his 
judgment  the  common  weal  of  men  and  nations  depended 
on  their  characters  ;  and  the  road  which  we  had  to  travel, 
if  we  were  to  make  a  good  end,  was  the  same  as  the  Chris- 
tian pilgrim  had  travelled  on  his  way  to  the  Celestial  City, 
no  primrose  path  thither  having  been  yet  made  by  God 
or  man.  The  austerer  virtues — manliness,  thrift,  simplicity, 
self-denial — were  dispensed  with  in  the  boasted  progress. 
There  was  no  demand  for  these,  no  need  of  them.  The 
heaven  aspired  after  was  enjo^mient,  and  the  passport 
thither  was  only  money.  Let  there  be  only  money  enough, 
and  the  gate  lay  open.  He  could  not  believe  this  doctrine. 
He  abhorred  it  from  the  bottom  of  his  soul.  Such  a  heaven 
was  no  heaven  for  a  man.  The  boasted  prosperity  would 
sooner  or  later  be  overtaken  by  '  God's  judgment.'  Espe- 
cially he  was  angry  w^lien  he  saw  men  to  whom  nature  had 
given  talents  lending  themselves  to  this  accursed  per- 
suasion ;  statesmen,  theologians,  philosophers  composedly 
swimming  with  the  stream,  careless  of  truth,  or  with  no 
longer  any  measure  of  truth  except  their  own  advantage. 
Some  who  had  eyes  were  afraid  to  open  them ;  others, 
and  the  most,  had  deliberately  extinguished  their  eyes. 
They  used  their  faculties  only  to  dress  the  popular  theories 
in  plausible  language,  and  were  carried  away  by  their  own 
eloquence,  till  they  actually  believed  what  they  were  say- 
ing. Respect  for  fact  they  liad  none.  Fact  to  them  was 
the  view  of  things  conventionally  received,  or  what  the 
w^orld  and  they  together  agreed  to  admit. 

That  the  facts  either  of  religion  or  politics  were  not  such 
as  bishops  and  statesmen  represented  them  to  be,  was 
f]-ightfully  evident  to  Carlyle,  and  he  could  not  be  silent 
if  he  wished.  Thus,  after  he  had  written  the  '  French 
devolution,'  '  Chartism '  had  to  come  out  of  him,  and 
'  Fast  and  Present,'  before  he  could  settle  to  '  Cromwell.' 


Habits  of  Declamation.  35 

'Cromwell '  done,  the  fierce  acid  had  accnmnlated  again 
and  liad  been  di8char«^ed  in  the  *  Latter-day  Pamphlets  ' — 
discharged,  however,  still  impei-fectly,  for  his  whole  soul 
was  loaded  with  bilious  indignation.  Many  an  evening, 
about  this  time,  I  heard  him  flinging  off  the  matter  in- 
tended for  the  rest  of  the  series  which  had  been  left  un- 
written, pouring  out,  for  hours  together,  a  torrent  of 
sulphurous  denunciation.  !No  one  could  check  him.  If 
anyone  tried  contradiction,  the  cataract  rose  against  the 
obstacle  till  it  rushed  over  it  and  drowned  it.  But,  in 
general,  his  listeners  sate  silent.  The  imagery,  his  wild 
play  of  humour,  the  immense  knowledge  always  evident  in 
the  grotesque  forms  which  it  assumed,  were  in  themselves 
so  dazzling  and  so  entertaining,  that  we  lost  the  use  of  our 
own  faculties  till  it  was  over.  He  did  not  like  making 
these  displays,  and  avoided  them  when  he  could ;  but  he 
was  easily  provoked,  and  when  excited  could  not  restrain 
liimself.  "Whether  he  expected  to  make  converts  by  the 
Pamphlets,  I  cannot  say.  His  sentences,  perhaps,  fell  hei-e 
and  there  like  seeds,  and  grew  to  something  in  minds  that 
could  receive  them.  In  the  general  hostility,  he  was  ex- 
periencing the  invariable  fate  of  all  men  who  see  what  is 
coming  before  those  who  are  about  them  see  it ;  and  he 
lived  to  see  most  of  the  unpalatable  doctrines  which  the 
Pamphlets  contained  verified  by  painful  experience  and 
practically  acted  on. 

In  the  midst  of  the  storm  which  he  had  raised,  he  was 
surprised  agreeably  by  an  invitation  to  dine  with  Sir 
Robert  Peel.  He  had  liked  Peel  ever  since  he  had  met 
him  at  Lord  Ashburton's.  Peel,  who  had  read  his  books, 
had  been  struck  equally  with  him,  and  wished  to  know 
more  of  him.  The  dinner  was  in  the  second  week  of 
May.  The  ostensible  object  w^as  to  bring  about  a  meeting 
between  Carlyle  and  Prescott.  The  account  of  it  is  in  his 
Journal. 


36  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

There  was  a  great  party,  Prescott,  Milman,  Barry  {architect), 
Lord  Mahon,  Shell,  Gibson  (sculptor),  Cubitt  (builder),  &c.,  &c. 
About  Prescott  I  cared  little,  and  indeed,  there  or  elsewhere,  did 
not  speak  with  him  at  all ;  but  what  I  noted  of  Peel  I  will  now  put 
down.  I  was  the  second  that  entered  the  big  drawing-room,  a 
picture  galleiy  as  well,  which  looks  out  over  the  Thames  (White- 
hall Gardens,  second  house  to  the  eastward  of  Montague  House), 
commands  Westminster  Bridge  too,  with  its  wrecked  parapets  (old 
Westminster  Bridge),  and  the  new  Parliament  Houses,  being,  I 
fancy,  of  semicircular  figure  in  that  part  and  projecting  into  the 
shore  of  the  river.  Old  Cubitt,  a  hoary,  modest,  sensible-looking 
man,  was  alone  with  Peel  when  I  entered.  My  reception  was 
abundantly  cordial.  Talk  went  on  about  the  New  Houses  of  Par- 
liament, and  the  impossibility  or  difficulty  of  hearing  in  them — 
others  entering,  Milman  &c.,  joined  in  it  as  I  had  done.  Sir  Kobert, 
in  his  mild  kindly  voice,  talked  of  the  difficulties  architects  had  in 
making  out  that  part  of  their  problem.  Nobody  then  knew  how  it 
was  to  be  done :  filling  of  a  room  with  people  sometimes  made  it 
audible  (witness  his  own  experience  at  Glasgow  in  the  College 
Eector's  time,  which  he  briefly  mentioned  to  us),  sometimes  it  had 
been  managed  by  hanging  up  cloth  curtains  &c.  Joseph  Hume, 
reporting  from  certain  Edinburgh  mathematicians,  had  stated  that 
the  best  big  room  for  being  heard  in,  that  was  known  in  England, 
was  a  Quakers'  meeting-house  near  Cheltenham.  I  have  forgot 
the  precise  place. 

People  now  came  in  thick  and  rapid.  I  went  about  the  gallery 
with  those  already  come,  and  saw  little  more  of  Sir  Robert  then. 
I  remember  in  presenting  Barry  to  Prescott  he  said  with  kindly 
emphasis,  *  I  have  wished  to  show  you  some  of  our  most  distin- 
guished men  :  allow  me  to  introduce,'  &c.  Barry  had  been  getting 
rebuked  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  those  very  days  or  hours, 
and  had  been  defended  there  by  Sir  Robert.  Barry,  when  I 
looked  at  him,  did  not  turn  out  by  any  means  such  a  fool  as  his 
pepper-box  architecture  would  have  led  one  to  guess — on  the  con- 
trary, a  broad  solid  man  with  much  ingenuity  and  even  delicacy 
of  expression,  who  had  well  employed  his  sixty  years  or  so  of  life 
in  looking  out  for  himself,  and  had  unhappily  found  pepper-box 
architecture  his  Goshen  !  From  the  distance  I  did  not  dislike 
him  at  all.  Panizzi,  even  Sci'ibe,  came  to  the  dinner,  no  ladies 
there  ;  nothing  but  two  sons  of  Peel,  one  at  each  end,  he  himself 
in  the  middle  about  opposite  to  where  I  sate  ;  Mahon  on  his  left 


Sir  RoheH  Ped,  37 

hand,  on  his  right  Van  cle  Weyer  (Belgian  ambassador) ;  not  a 
creature  there  for  whom  I  cared  one  penny,  except  Peel  himself. 
Dinner  sumptuous  and  excellently  served,  but  I  should  think 
mther  wearisome  to  everybody,  as  it  certainly  was  to  me.  After 
all  the  servants  but  the  butler  were  gone,  we  began  to  hear  a  lit- 
tle of  Peel's  quiet  talk  across  the  table,  unimportant,  distinguished 
by  its  sense  of  the  ludicrous  shining  through  a  strong  official  ra- 
tionality and  even  seriousness  of  temper.  Distracted  address  of  a 
letter  from  somebody  to  Queen  Victoria  :  *  The  most  noble  George 
Victoria,  Queen  of  England,  Knight  and  Baronet,'  or  something 
like  that.  A  man  had  once  written  to  Peel  himself,  while  secre- 
tary, *  that  he  was  weaiy  of  life,  that  if  any  gentleman  wanted  for 
his  park-woods  a  hermit,  he,  &c.,'  all  which  was  very  pretty  and 
human  as  Peel  gave  it  us.  In  rising  we  had  some  question  about 
the  pictures  in  his  dining-room,  which  are  Wilkie's  (odious)  John 
Knox  at  the  entrance  end,  and  at  the  opposite  three,  or  perhaps 
four,  all  by  Reynolds  ;  Dr.  Johnson,  original  of  the  engravings 
one  sees ;  Reynolds  himself  by  his  own  pencil,  and  two,  or  per- 
haps three,  other  pictures.  Doubts  rising  about  who  some  lady 
jwrtrait  was,  I  went  to  the  window  and  asked  Sir  Robei-t  himself, 
who  turned  with  alacrity  and  talked  to  us  about  that  and  the  rest. 
The  hayid  in  Johnson's  portrait  brought  an  anecdote  from  him 
about  Wilkie  and  it  at  Drayton.  Peel  spread  his  own  hand  over 
it,  an  inch  or  two  off,  to  illustrate  or  enforce— as  fine  a  man's  hand 
as  I  remember  to  have  seen,  strong,  delicate,  and  scnipulously 
clean.  Upstairs,  most  of  the  people  having  soon  gone,  he  showed 
us  his  volumes  of  autographs — Mirabeau,  Johnson,  Byron,  Scott, 
and  many  English  kings  and  officialities  :  excellent  cheerful  talk 
and  description  ;  human,  but  official  in  all  things.  Then,  with  a 
cordial  shake  of  the  hand,  dismissal ;  and  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
(mirum  /),  insisting  on  it,  took  me  home  in  his  carriage. 

Carljle  had  probably  encountered  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
before,  at  the  Ashburtons' ;  but  this  meeting  at  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel's  was  tlie  beginning  of  an  intimacy  which  grew 
up  between  these  singularly  opposite  men,  who,,  in  spite 
of  diiferences,  discovered  that  they  thouglit,  at  bottom,  on 
serious  subjects,  very  nnich  alike.  The  Bishop  once  told 
me  lie  considered  Carlyle  a  most  eminently  religious  man. 
^Ah,  Sam!'  said  Carlyle  to  me  one  day,  'he  is  a  very 


38  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

clever  fellow  ;  I  do  not  hate  him  near  as  much  as  I  fear  I 
ought  to  do.' 

Once  again,  a  few  days  later,  Carlyle  met  Peel  at  a  din- 
ner at  Bath  House — '  a  real  statesman '  as  he  now  dis- 
cerned him  to  be.  '  He  was  fresh  and  hearty,  with 
delicate,  gentle,  yet  frank  manners ;  a  kindly  man.  His 
reserve  as  to  all  great  or  public  matters  sits  him  quite 
naturally  and  enhances  your  ]*espect — a  warm  sense  of 
fun,  really  of  genuine  broad  drollery,  looks  through  him  ; 
the  hopef ullest  feature  I  could  clearly  see  in  this  last  in- 
terview or  the  other.  At  tea  he  talked  to  us  readily,  on 
slight  hint  from  me,  about  Byron  (Birron  he  called  him) 
and  their  old  school-days  :  kindly  reminiscences,  agreeable 
to  hear  at  first  hand,  though  nothing  new  in  them  to  us.' 

At  Bath  House  also,  this  season,  Carlyle  was  to  meet 
(though  without  an  introduction)  a  man  whom  he  regarded 
with'freer  admiration  than  he  had  learnt  to  feel  even  for 
Peel.  He  was  tempted  to  a  ball  there,  the  first  and  last 
occasion  on  which  he  was  ever  present  at  such  a  scene. 
He  was  anxious  to  see  the  thing  for  once,  and  he  saw 
along  with  it  the  hero  of  Waterloo. 

Journal. 
June  25,  1850. — Last  night  at  a  grand  ball  at  Bath  House,  the 
only  ball  of  any  description  I  ever  saw.  From  five  to  seven  hun- 
dred select  aristocracy  ;  the  lights,  decorations,  houseroom  and 
arrangements  perfect  (I  suppose)  ;  the  whole  thing  worth  havino- 
seen  for  a  couple  of  hours.  Of  the  many  women,  only  a  few  were 
to  be  called  beautiful.  I  remember  the  languid,  careless,  slow  air 
with  which  the  elderly  peeresses  came  into  the  room  and  there- 
after lounged  about.    A  Miss  L (a  general's  daughter)  was  the 

prettiest  I  remember  of  the  schimen  Kindern.  Lord  Londonderry 
looked  sad,  foolish,  and  surly.  His  Marchioness,  once  a  beauty 
you  could  see,  had  the  finest  diamonds  of  the  party,  Jane  tells  me. 
Lord  and  Lady  Lovelace,  Marquis  of  Breadalbane,  thickset  farmer- 
looking  man,  round  steel-grey  head  with  bald  crown.  Hat  NicJits 
zu  hedeuten.  Anglesea,  fine-looking  old  man  trailing  his  cork  leg, 
shows  better  on  horseback.     American  Lawrence  (minister  here). 


Carhjle  at  a  Ball.  39 

broad,  burly,  energetically  sagacions-looking,  a  man  of  sixty  with 
long  grey  hair  swirled  round  the  bald  parts  of  his  big  head ; 
frightful  American  lady,  his  wife,  d  la  Cushman ;  chin  like  a 
powder-horn,  sallow,  parchment  complexion,  very  tall,  very  lean, 
expression  thrift — in  all  senses  of  the  word.  *  Thrift,  Hoi-atio.' 
Prescott,  and  the  other  Americans  there,  not  beautiful  any  of  them. 
By  far  the  most  interesting  figure  present  was  the  old  Duke  of 
Wellington,  who  appeared  between  twelve  and  one,  and  slowly 
glided  through  the  rooms — truly  a  beautiful  old  man  ;  I  had  never 
seen  till  now  how  beautiful,  and  what  an  expression  of  graceful 
simplicity,  veracity,  and  nobleness  there  is  about  the  old  hero 
when  you  see  him  close  at  hand.  His  very  size  had  hitherto  de- 
ceived me.  He  is  a  shortish  slightish  figure,  about  five  feet  eight, 
of  good  breadth  however,  and  all  muscle  or  bone.  His  legs,  I 
think,  must  be  the  short  part  of  him,  for  certainly  on  horseback  I 
have  always  taken  him  to  be  tall.  Eyes  beautiful  light  blue,  full 
of  mild  valour,  with  infinitely  more  faculty  and  geniality  than  I 
had  fancied  before  ;  the  face  wholly  gentle,  wise,  valiant,  and 
venerable.  The  voice  too,  as  I  again  heard,  is  *  aquiline '  clear, 
perfectly  equable — uncracked,  that  is — and  perhaps  almost  musi- 
cal, but  essentially  tenor  or  almost  treble  voice — eighty-two,  I  un- 
derstand. He  glided  slowly  along,  slightly  saluting  this  and  that 
other,  clear,  clean,  fresh  as  this  June  evening  itself,  till  the  silver 
buckle  of  his  stock  vanished  into  the  door  of  the  next  room,  and  I 
saw  him  no  more.  Except  Dr.  Chalmers,  I  have  not  for  many 
years  seen  so  beautiful  an  old  man. 

In  his  early  Had  leal  days,  Carlyle  had  spoken  scornfully, 
as  usual,  of  Peel  and  Wellington,  not  distinguishing  them 
from  the  lierd  of  average  politicians.  He  was  learning  to 
know  them  better,  to  recognise  better,  perhaps,  how  great 
a  man  must  essentially  be  who  can  accomplish  anything 
good  under  the  existing  limitations.  But  the  knowledge 
came  too  late  to  ripen  into  practical  acquaintance.  Wel- 
lington's sun  was  setting,  Peel  was  actually  gone  in  a  few 
weeks  from  the  dinner  at  Bath  House,  and  Wellington 
had  passed  that  singular  eulogy  upon  him  in  the  House  of 
Lords — singular,  but  most  instructive  commentary  on  the 
political  life  of  our  days,  as  if  Peel  was  the  only  public 


40  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

man  of  whom  such  a  character  could  be  given.  '  He  had 
never  known  him  tell  a  deliberate  falsehood.'  In  the  in- 
terval, Carlyle  met  Feel  once  in  the  street.  He  lifted  his 
hat; 

the  only  time  (he  says)  we  had  ever  saluted,  owing  to  mutual 
bashfulness  and  pride  of  humility,  I  do  believe.  Sir  Robert,  with 
smiling  look,  extended  his  left  hand  and  cordially  grasped  mine 
in  it,  with  a  *  How  are  you  ? '  pleasant  to  think  of.  It  struck  me 
that  there  might  certainly  be  some  valuable  reform  work  still  in 
Peel,  though  the  look  of  all  things,  his  own  strict  conservatism 
and  even  officiality  of  view^  and  still  more  the  coliue  of  objects  and 
persons  his  life  was  cast  amidst,  did  not  increase  my  hopes  of  a 
great  result.  But  he  seemed  happy  and  humane  and  hopeful,  still 
strong  and  fresh  to  look  upon.  Except  him,  there  was  nobody  I 
had  the  smallest  hope  in ;  and  what  he  would  do,  which  seemed 
now  soon  to  be  tried,  was  always  an  interesting  feature  of  the 
coming  time  for  me.  I  had  an  authentic  regard  for  this  man  and 
a  wish  to  know  more  of  him — nearly  the  one  man  alive  of  whom  I 
could  say  so  much. 

The  last  great  English  statesman — the  last  great  consti- 
tutional statesman  perhaps  that  England  will  ever  have — 
died  through  a  fall  from  his  horse  in  the  middle  of  this 
summer,  1850. 

From  Journal, 
On  a  Saturday  evening,  bright  sunny  weather,  Jane  being  out 
at  Addiscombe  and  I  to  go  next  day,  29th  of  June  it  must  have 
been,  I  had  gone  up  Piccadilly  between  four  and  five  p.m.,  and 
was  returning ;  half-past  six  when  I  got  to  Hyde  Park  Corner. 
Old  Marquis  of  Anglesey  was  riding  a  brisk  skittish  horse,  a  good 
way  down  Piccadilly,  just  ahead  of  me  ;  he  entered  the  park  as  I 
jjassed,  his  horse  capering  among  the  carriages,  somewhat  to  my 
alarm,  not  to  his.  It  must  have  been  some  five  or  ten  minutes 
before  this,  that  Sir  Robert  had  been  thrown  on  Constitution  Hill 
and  got  his  death-hurt.  I  did  not  hear  of  it  at  all  till  next  day  at 
Addiscombe,  when  the  anxiety,  which  I  had  hoped  was  exagger- 
ated, was  considerable  about  him.  To  this  hour,  it  is  impossible 
to  know  how  the  fall  took  place.  Peel  had  no  'fit,'  I  think.  He 
was  a  poor  rider,  short  in  the  legs,  long  and  heavy  in  the  body. 
His  horse  took  both  to  rearing  and  flinging  up  its  heels,  says  a 


Death  of  Fed.  41 

\vitness.  He  came  down,  it  upon  him,  collar-bone  broken.  It 
tiu-ned  out  after  death  that  a  rib  had  been  broken  (also),  driven  in 
upon  the  region  of  the  lungs  or  heart.  It  had  been  enough.  On 
Monday  I  walked  up  to  some  club  to  get  the  bulletin,  which  pre- 
tended to  be  favourable.  We  went  then  to  the  house  itself,  saw 
carriages,  a  scattered  crowd  simmering  about,  leanit  nothing  fur- 
tlier,  but  came  home  in  hope.  Tuesday  morning,  2nd  of  July, 
•  Postman '  reported  *  a  bad  night ; '  uncei-tain  rumoui-s  of  good 
and  evil  through  the  day.  (Ruskin  <fcc.  here  in  the  evening ;  good 
re^jort  from  Aubrey  do  Vere,  about  11  p.m.)  I  had  still  an  obsti- 
nate hope.  Wednesday  morning  *  Postman  *  reported  Sir  Robert 
Peel  died  last  night,  I  think  about  nine.  Eheu  !  eJieu  !  Great  ex- 
pressions of  national  sorrow,  really  a  serious  expression  of  regret 
in  the  public  ;  an  affectionate  appreciation  of  this  man  which  he 
himself  was  far  from  being  sure  of,  or  aware  of,  while  he  lived.  I 
myself  have  said  nothing  :  hardly  know  what  to  think — feel  only 
in  general  that  I  have  now  no  definite  hope  of  peaceable  improve- 
ment for  this  country  ;  that  the  one  statesman  we  had,  or  the  least 
similitude  of  a  statesman  so  far  as  I  know  or  can  guess,  is  sud- 
denly snatched  away  from  us.  What  will  become  of  it  ?  God 
knows.  K  peaceable  result  I  now  hardly  expect  for  this  huge  wen 
of  corniptions  and  diseases  and  miseries ;  and  in  the  mean- 
while the  wrigglings  and  strugglings  in  Parliament,  how  they 
now  do,  or  what  they  now  do  there,  have  become  mere  zero  to  me, 
tedious  as  a  tale  that  has  been  told.  Dr.  Foucart,  who  was  pres- 
ent, told  Farre,  Sir  Robert  was  frequently  insensible  ;  wandered, 
talking  about  his  watch,  about  getting  to  bed.  '  Let  us  light  the 
candles  and  go  to  bed.'  *  Have  you  wound  up  that  watch  ? '  &c. 
Never  alluded  to  his  hurt.  He  lay  all  the  while  in  that  dining- 
room,  made  them  take  off  his  bandages  as  intolerable,  would  not 
be  examined  or  manipulated  further ;  got  away  from  his  water- 
bed  ;  slept  eight  hours  upon  a  sofa,  the  only  sleep  he  had.  *  God 
bless  you  all ! '  he  said  in  a  faint  voice  to  his  children,  clear  and 
weak,  and  so  went  his  way.     T«Xof. 

Great  men  die,  like  little  men  ;  '  there  is  no  difference,' 
and  the  world  goes  its  way  without  them.  Parliament 
was  to  *  wriggle  on '  with  no  longer  any  Feel  to  guide ; 
'  the  wen,'  as  Cobbett  called  London,  was  to  double  its  al- 
ready overgrown,  monstrous  bulk,  and  Carlyle  had  still 
thirty  years  before  liim  to  watch  and  shudder  at  its  ex- 


42  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

tending.  But  from  this  time  lie  cared  little  about  con- 
temporary politics,  which  he  regarded  as  beating  the 
wind.  What  he  himself  was  next  to  do  was  a  problem  to 
him  which  he  did  not  see  his  way  through.  Some  time 
or  other  he  meant  to  write  a  '  Life  of  Sterling,'  but  as 
yet  he  had  not  sufficient  composure.  Up  to  this  time  ho 
had  perhaps  some  hope  or  purpose  of  being  employed  ac- 
tively in  public  life.  All  idea  of  this  kind,  if  he  ever 
seriously  entertained  it,  had  now  vanished.  As  a  writer 
of  books,  and  as  this  only,  he  was  to  make  his  mark  on 
his  generation,  but  what  book  was  to  be  written  next  was 
entirely  vague  to  him.  The  house  in  Chelsea  required 
paint  and  whitewash  again — a  process  which,  for  every- 
one's sake,  it  was  desirable  that  he  should  not  be  present 
to  witness.  His  friend,  Mr.  Kedwood,  again  invited  him 
to  South  Wales.  He  had  been  dreadfully  '  bored  '  there  ; 
but  he  was  affected,  too,  by  Redwood's  loyal  attachment. 
He  agreed  to  go  to  him  for  a  w^eek  or  two,  and  intended 
afterwards  to  make  his  way  into  Scotland. 

On  the  way  to  Cardiff,  he  spent  a  night  with  Savage 
Landor,  who  w^as  then  living  apart  from  his  family  in 
Bath. 

Landor  (he  wrote)  was  in  liis  house,  in  a  fine  quiet  street  like  a 
New  Town  Edinburgh  one,  waiting  for  me,  attended  only  by  a 
nice  Bologna  dog.  Dinner  not  far  from  ready  ;'his  apartments  all 
hung  round  with  queer  old  Italian  pictures ;  the  very  doors  had 
pictures  on  them.  Dinner  was  elaborately  simple.  The  brave 
Landor  forced  me  to  talk  far  too  much,  and  we  did  very  near  a 
bottle  of  claret,  besides  two  glasses  of  sherry  ;  far  too  much  liquor 
and  excitement  for  a  poor  fellow  like  me.  However,  he  was  really 
stirring  company :  a  proud,  irascible,  trenchant,  yet  generous, 
veracious,  and  very  dignified  old  man  ;  quite  a  ducal  or  royal  man 
in  the  temper  of  him  ;  reminded  me  something  of  old  Sterling,  ex- 
cept that  for  Irish  blarney  you  must  substitute  a  fund  of  Welsh 
choler.  He  left  me  to  go  smoking  along  the  streets  about  ten  at 
night,  he  himself  retiring  then,  having  walked  me  through  the 
Orescent,  Park,  &c.,  in  the  dusk  before.     Bath  is  decidedly  the 


Visit  to  South  Wales.  48 

prettiest  town  in  all  England.  Nay,  Edinburgh  itself,  except  for 
the  sea  and  the  Grau.piuus,  does  not  equal  it.  Regular,  but  hy 
no  means  formal  streets,  all  clean,  all  quiet,  yet  not  dead,  winding 
up  in  picturesque,  lively  varieties  along  the  face  of  a  large,  broad 
sweep  of  woody  green  sandstone  liill,  with  large  outlook  to  the 
opposite  side  of  the  valley  ;  and  fine,  decent,  clean  people  saunter- 
ing about  it,  mostly  small  count]:y  gentry,  I  was  told ;  '  live  here 
for  1,200/.  a  year,'  said  Landor. 

Mr.  Redwood  was  no  longer  at  Llandougli,  but  load 
moved  to  Boverton,  a  place  at  no  great  distance.  Bover- 
ton  was  nearer  to  the  sea,  and  the  daily  bathe  could  be 
effected  without  difficulty.  Tlie  cocks,  cuddies,  &c.,  were 
as  troublesome  as  usual,  though  perhaps  less  so  than  Car- 
lyle's  vivid  anathemas  on  the  poor  creatures  wonld  lead 
one  to  suppose.  His  host  entertained  him  with  more 
honour  tliat  he  would  have  paid  to  a  prince  or  an  arch- 
bishop, and  Carlyle  could  not  but  be  grateful. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Ckirlyle. 

Boverton :  Aug.  13,  l&W. 
Redwood  is  friendliness  itself,  poor  fellow ;  discloses  a  great 
quantity  of  passive  intelligence  amid  his  great  profundity  of  dul- 
ness  :  nay,  a  kind  of  humour  at  times,  and  ceitainly  excels  in  gooil 
temper  all  the  human  creatures  I  have  been  neai*  lately.  Several 
times  his  fussiness  and^ery  have  brought  angry  growlings  out  of 
me,  and  spurts  of  fierce  impatience  which  he  has  taken  more  like 
«&  angel  than  a  Welshman.  Perfection  of  temi)er !  And  his  pony 
is  very  swift  and  good,  and  his  household  is  hospitably  furnished, 
and  all  that  he  has  is  at  my  disposal.  On  the  whole  I  shall  hand- 
somely make  out  my  three  weeks,  and  hope  to  get  profit  from  it 
after  all. 

Carlyle  would  have  been  tlie  most  perfect  of  guide-book 
writers.  Nothing  escaped  his  observation  ;  and  he  never 
rested  till  he  liad  learnt  all  that  could  be  known  about  any 
place  which  he  visited :  first  and  foremost,  the  meaning 
of  the  name  of  it,  if  it  was  uncommon  or  suggestive.  His 
daily  letters  to  Chelsea  were  full  of  descriptions  of  the 


44  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

neighbourhood,  all  singularly  vivid.  Here,  for  instance, 
is  an  account  of  Merthyr  Tydvil,  to  which  his  friend  car- 
ried him : — 

In  1755  Merthyr  Tydvil  was  a  mountain  hamlet  of  five  or  six 
houses,  stagnant  and  silent  as  it  had  been  ever  since  Tydvil,  the 
king's  or  laird's  daughter,  was  martyred  here,  say  1,300  years  be- 
fore. About  that  time  a  certain  Mr.  Bacon,  a  cunning  Yorkshire- 
man,  passing  that  way,  discovered  that  there  was  iron  in  the  ground 
— iron  and  coal.     He  took  a  99  years'  lease  in  consequence,  and 

in  brief,  there  are  now  about  50,000  grimy  mortals,  black  and 

clammy  with  soot  and  sweat,  screwing  out  a  livelihood  for  them- 
selves in  that  spot  of  the  Taff  Valley.  Such  a  set  of  unguided, 
hard-worked,  fierce,  and  miserable -looking  sons  of  Adam  I  never 
saw  before.  Ah  me!  It  is  like  a  vision  of  Hell,  and  will  never 
leave  me,  that  of  these  poor  creatures  broiling,  all  in  sweat  and 
dirt,  amid  their  furnaces,  pits,  and  rolling  mills.  For  here  is  ab- 
solutely '  no '  aristocracy  or  guiding  class  ;  nothing  but  one  or  two 
huge  iron-masters  ;  and  the  rest  are  operatives,  petty  shopkeepers, 
Scotch  hawkers,  &c.  &c.  The  town  might  be,  and  will  be,  one  of 
the  prettiest  places  in  the  world.  It  is  one  of  the  sootiest,  squal- 
idest,  and  ugliest :  all  cinders  and  dust-mounds  and  soot.  Their 
very  greens  they  bring  from  Bristol,  though  the  ground  is  excel- 
lent all  round.  Nobody  thinks  of  gardening  in  such  a  locality — 
all  devoted  to  metallic  gambling. 

The  house-cleaning  at  Chelsea  was  complicated  by  the 
misconduct  of  servants.  Mrs.  Carlyle  was  struggling  in 
the  midst  of  it  all,  happy  that  her  husband  was  away,  but 
wishing  perhaps  that  he  would  show  himself  a  little  more 
appreciative  of  what  she  was  undergoing.  No  one  ever 
laid  himself  more  open  to  being  misunderstood  in  such 
matters  than  Carlyle  did.  He  was  the  gratefullest  of 
men,  but,  from  a  shy  reluctance  to  speak  of  his  feelings, 
he  left  his  gratitude  unuttered.  He  seemed  to  take  what- 
ever was  done  for  him  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  to  growl 
if  anything  was  not  to  his  mind.  It  was  only  in  his  let- 
ters that  he  showed  what  was  really  in  his  heart. 


Visit  to  Smith  Wales.  45 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Boverton  :  Aug.  19,  laW. 
Keep  yonreelf  qniet.  Do  not  let  that  scandalous  randy  of  a  girl 
disturb  you  a  moment  more  ;  and  be  as  patient  with  your  poor, 
soft  dumpling  of  an  apprentice  as  you  can,  in  hopes  of  better  by- 
and-by.  *  Servants '  are  at  a  strange  pass  in  these  times.  I  con- 
tinually foresee  that  before  vei-y  long  there  will  be  on  all  hands  a 
necessity  and  determination  on  the  part  of  wise  people  to  do  with- 
out servants.  That  is  actually  a  stage  of  progress  that  is  ahead  of 
us.  How  I  feel  at  this  moment  the  blessedness  of  such  a  possi- 
bility, had  one  been  trained  to  do  a  little  ordinary  work,  and  were 
the  due  preliminaiies  well  arranged  !  '  Sonants,'  on  the  present 
principle,  are  a  mere  deceptive  imagination.  Command  is  no- 
where ;  obedience  nowhere.  The  deVil  will  get  it  all  if  it  do  not 
mend.  Oh  !  my  dear  little  Jeannie,  what  a  quantity  of  ugly  feats 
you  have  always  taken  upon  you  in  this  respect ;  how  you  have  lain 
between  me  and  these  annoyances,  and  wrapt  me  like  a  cloak 
against  them  !     I  know  this  well,  whether  I  speak  of  it  or  not. 

Aug.  21. 
Thanks  to  thee !  Oli !  know  that  I  have  thanked  thee  some- 
times in  my  silent  hours  as  no  words  could.  For  indeed  I  am 
sometimes  terribly  di'iven  into  comers  in  this  my  life  pilgrimage, 
of  late  especially ;  and  the  thing  that  is  in  my  heart  is  known,  or 
can  be  kno^vTi,  to  the  Almighty  Maker  alone. 

He  stayed  three  weeks  at  Boverton,  and  then  gratefully 
took  leave.  'The  good  Redwood,'  as  he  called  his  host, 
died  the  year  following,  and  he  never  saw  him  again. 
Ilis  route  to  Scotsbrig  was,  as  usual,  by  the  Liverpool 
and  Annan  steamer.  The  discomforts  of  his  journey  were 
not  different  from  other  people's  in  similar  circumstances. 
It  was  the  traveller  who  was  different ;  and  his  miseries, 
comical  as  they  sound,  were  real  enough  to  so  sensitive  a 
sufferer.  He  sent  a  history  of  them  to  Chelsea  on  his  ar- 
rival. '  I  am,'  he  said,  *  a  very  unthankful,  iH-conditioned, 
bilious,  wayward,  and  heartworn  son  of  Adam,  I  do  sus- 
pect. Well,  you  shall  liear  my  com])laint8.  To  whom 
can  we  complain,  if  not  to  one  anotlier,  after  all  ? '     He 


46  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

had  reached  Liverpool  without  misadventure.  He  had 
gone  on  board  hite  in  the  evening.  The  night,  as  the  ves- 
sel ran  down  the  Mersey,  was  soft  and  beautiful.  He 
walked  and  smoked  for  an  hour  on  deck,  and  then  went 
in  search  of  his  sleeping-place. 

*  This  way  the  gents'  cabin,  sir !  '  and  in  truth  it  was  almost 
worth  a  little  voyage  to  see  such  a  cabin  of  gents  ;  for  never  in  all 
my  travels  had  I  seen  the  like  before,  nor  probably  shall  again. 
The  little  crib  of  a  place  which  I  had  glanced  at  two  hours  before 
and  found  six  beds  in  had  now  developed  itself  by  hinge-shelves 
(which  in  the  day  were  parts  of  sofas)  and  iron  brackets  into  the 
practical  sleeping-place  of  at  least  sixteen  of  the  gent  species. 
There  they  all  lay,  my  crib  the  only  empty  one  ;  a  x)ile  of  clothes 
up  to  the  very  ceiling,  and  all  round  it  gent  packed  on  gent,  few 
inches  between  the  nose  of  one  gent  and  the  nape  of  the  other 
gent's  neck ;  not  a  particle  of  air,  all  orifices  closed.  Five  or  six 
of  said  gents  already  raging  and  snoring.  And  a  smell !  Ach 
Gott !  I  suppose  it  must  resemble  that  of  the  slave-ships  in  the 
middle-passage.  It  was  positively  immoral  to  think  of  sleeping  in 
such  a  receptacle  of  abominations. 

He  sought  the  deck  again  ;  but  the  night  turned  to 
rain,  and  the  deck  of  a  steamer  in  wet  and  darkness  is  not 
delightful,  even  in  August.  When  the  vessel  reached  An- 
nan, and  '  he  was  flung  into  the  street,'  the  unfortunate 
'  Jonah  '  could  but  address  a  silent  word  of  thanks  to  the 
Merciful  Power,  and  '  appeal  to  Goody  and  posterity.'  At 
Scotsbrig  he  could  do  as  he  liked — be  silent  from  morning 
till  night,  wander  about  alone  among  the  hills,  see  no  one, 
and  be  nursed  in  mind  and  body  by  the  kindest  hands ; 
but  he  was  out  of  order  in  one  as  well  as  the  other.  The 
reaction  after  the  Pamphlets  was  now  telling  upon  him. 
Yery  strange,  very  characteristic,  is  the  account  which  he 
writes  of  his  condition. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Scotsbrig  :  September  4,  1850. 
I  find  it  good  that  all  one's  ugly  thoughts — ^ugly  as  sin  and  Satan 
several  of  them— should  come  uninterrupted  before  one  and  look 


Heat  at  Scotahrig,  4T 

and  do  their  very  worst  Many  things  tend  towards  settlement  in 
that  way,  aud  silently  beginnings  uf  ai'rangenient  and  deteimina- 
tion  show  themselves.  AVhy,  oh  !  why,  should  a  living  man  com- 
plain after  all  ?  "We  get,  each  one  of  ns,  the  common  fortune,  with 
superficial  variations.  A  man  ought  to  know  that  he  is  not  ill-used ; 
that  if  he  miss  the  thing  one  way  he  gets  it  in  another.  Your 
'  beautiful  blessings,'  I  have  them  not.  I  cannot  train  myself  by 
having  them.  Well,  then,  by  doing  without  them  I  can  train  my- 
self. It  is  there  that  I  go  ahead  of  you.  There,  too,  lie  prizes  if 
you  knew  it. 

September  6. 
Nothing  so  like  a  Sabbath  has  been  vouchsafed  to  me  for  many 
heavy  months  as  these  last  two  days  at  poor  Scotsbrig  are.  Let 
me  be  thankful  for  them.  They  were  very  necessaiy  to  me.  They 
will  ojien  my  heart  to  sad  and  affectionate  thoughts,  which  the  in- 
tolerable burden  of  my  own  mean  sufferings  has  stifled  for  a  long 
time.  I  do  nothing  here,  and  pretend  to  do  nothing  but  sit  silent 
in  the  middle  of  old  unutterable  reminiscences  and  poor  simple 

scenes  more  interesting  to  me  on  this  side  Hades 1     One  should 

be  content  to  admit  that  one  is  Nothing :  a  poor,  vainly  struggling 
soul,  yet  seen  with  pity  by  the  Eternal  Powei-s,  I  do  believe,  and 
whose  struggles  at  woi-st  are  bending  towai'ds  their  close.  Tlus 
imts  one  to  peace  when  nothing  else  can  ;  and  the  beggarly  miser- 
ies of  the  mere  body  abating  a  little,  as  with  me  they  sensibly  do,  it 
is  strange  what  dark  curtains  drop  off  of  their  own  accord,  and  how 
the  promise  of  clearer  skies  again  visits  one.  Tliese  last  three 
days  have  been  of  surpassing  beauty— clear,  calm  September  days, 
the  sky  bright  and  blue,  with  fluctuating  masses  of  bright  clouds. 
The  hills  are  all  spotted  with  pure  light  and  pure  shade  ;  every- 
thing of  the  liveliest  yellow  on  the  liveliest  green  in  this  lower 
region.  On  riding  up  from  the  Kirtlebridge  side  hitherward,  I 
could  not  but  admit  that  the  bright  scene,  with  Burnswark  and 
the  infinite  azure  behind  it,  was  one  of  the  loveliest  that  I  had 
anywhere  seen.  Poor  old  Annandale,  after  all !  ...  A  note 
to  Lady  Ashburton,  after  I  arrived  here,  brought  this  answer  yes- 
terday. Great  Gaudeavius  at  the  Grange,  it  would  seem.  Between 
life  thei-e  and  life  hei'e^  as  I  now  have  it,  it  must  be  admitted  there 
is  a  conti-ast.  We  are  about  the  two  extremes  of  decent  human 
lodging,  and  I  know  which  answei-s  the  best  for  me.  Bemember 
me  generally  to  all  friends.     Good  souls  !    I  like  them  all  better 

*  Sentence  apparently  unoompleted. 


48  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

than  i^erhaps  they  would  suspect  from  my  grim  ways.  Sometimes 
it  has  struck  me,  Could  not  I  continue  this  Sabbatic  period  in  a  room 
at  Craigenputtock,  perhaps  ?     Alas  !  alas  ! 

The  evident  uncertainty  as  to  liis  future  occupations 
which  appears  in  these  letters,  taken  with  what  he  told  nie 
of  his  thoughts  of  public  life  at  the  time  of  his  Pamphlets, 
confirms  me  in  my  impression  that  he  had  nourished  some 
practical  hopes  from  those  Pamphlets,  and  had  imagined 
that  he  miglit  perliaps  be  himself  invited  to  assist  in  carry- 
ing out  some  of  the  changes  Avliich  he  had  there  insisted 
on.  Sucli  hopes,  if  he  had  formed  them,  lie  must  have 
seen  by  this  time  were  utterly  groundless.  Whatever  im- 
provements might  be  attempted,  no  statesman  would  ever 
call  on  him  to  take  part  in  the  process.  To  this,  which 
was  now  a  certainty,  he  had  to  endeavour  to  adjust  him- 
self ;  but  he  was  in  low  spirits — unusually  low,  even  for 
him.  He  filled  his  letters  with  anecdotes  of  misfortunes, 
miseries,  tragedies,  among  his  Annandale  neighbours, 
mocking  at  the  idea  that  this  world  was  made  for  happi- 
ness.    He  went  to  stay  with  his  sister  at  Dumfries. 

The  kindness  of  these  friends  (he  said),  their  very  kindness, 
works  me  misery  of  which  they  have  no  idea.  In  the  gloom  of 
my  own  imagination  I  seem  to  myself  a  pitiable  man.  Last  night 
I  had,  in  spite  of  noises  and  confusions  many,  a  tolerable  sleep, 
most  welcome  to  me,  for  on  the  Monday  night  here  I  did  not  sleep 
at  all.  Yesterday  was  accordingly  a  day  !  My  poor  mother,  too, 
is  very  weak,  and  there  are  clothes  a-buying,  and  confusions  very 
many  ;  and  no  minute  can  I  be  left  alone  to  let  my  sad  thoughts 
settle  into  sad  composure,  but  every  minute  I  must  talk,  talk.  God 
help  me  !  To  be  dead  altogether !  But  fie  !  fie  !  This  is  very 
weak,  and  I  am  but  a  spoony  to  write  so.  To-morrow  I  will  write 
to  you  more  deliberately.  I  had  no  idea  I  was  so  sick  of  heart 
and  had  made  such  progress  towards  age  and  steady  dispiritment. 
Alas  !  alas  !  I  ought  to  be  wrapped  in  cotton  wool,  and  laid  in  a 
locked  drawer  at  present.  I  can  stand  notliing.  I  am  really 
ashamed  of  the  figure  I  cut  among  creatures  in  the  ordinary 
human  situation.      One  couldn't  do  without  human  creatures  alto- 


^Alf<y?i  Locke:  49 

getlier.  .Oh  !  no.  But  at  present,  in  snch  moods  as  I  am  now  in, 
it  were  such  an  inexpressible  saving  of  fret  and  botheration  and 
futile  distress  if  they  would  but  let  me  alone.  Woe's  me !  "Woe 
is  me ! 

It  was  in  this  hninoiir  that  Carlyle  read  *  Alton  Locke,' 
which  Ivingsley  sent  him.  I  well  remember  the  gratifica- 
tion with  which  Kingsley  showed  me  his  approving  criti- 
cism ;  and  it  speaks  volumes  for  the  merit  of  that  book 
that  at  such  a  time  Carlyle  could  take  pleasure  in  it.  Littlo 
did  either  of  us  then  guess  in  what  a  depth  of  depression 
it  had  found  him.  The  cloud  lifted  after  a  while ;  but 
these  fits  when  they  came  were  entirely  disabling.  "Robust 
constitutional  strength,  which  is  half  of  it  insensibility, 
was  not  among  the  gifts  which  Nature  had  bestowed  on 
Carlyle.  His  strength  w^as  moral ;  it  lay  in  an  unalterable 
resolution  to  do  wliat  was  I'ight  and  to  speak  what  was 
true — a  strength  nobly  sufficient  for  the  broad  direction  of 
his  life  and  intellect,  but  leaving  him  a  helpless  victim  of 
the  small  vexations  which  prey  like  mosquitoes  on  the 
nerves  of  unfortunate  men  of  genius.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
by  the  help  of  Providence,  his  irritations  neuti-alised  one 
another.  In  his  steady  thrift,  he  had  his  clothes  made  for 
him  in  Annandale,  the  cloth  bought  at  Dumfries  and 
made  up  by  an  Ecclefechan  tailor.  His  wardrobe  required 
refitting  before  his  return  to  London,  and  the  need  of  at- 
tending to  it  proved  an  antidote  to  his  present  miseries. 
After  relating  his  exertions  in  the  tailor  department,  he 
says  very  prettily ; — 

Do  not  regret  these  contrivances  of  a  *  rude  age.'  dear  Goody 
mine.  They  are  still  useful  for  our  circumstances,  and  are  always 
beautiful,  as  human  Wrtue  is.  We  a^e  not  yet  rich,  my  woman, 
nor  likely  ever  to  be.  Devil  may  care  for  that  part  of  it !  No 
new  *  suit  of  virtues : '  only  not  quite  so  tight  a  fit  as  the  old  one ; 
one  advantage  that,  undoubtedly.  But  Chapman's  account  for  the 
Pamphlets  '  might  teach  us  moderation  if  we  were  forgetting  oor- 

*  The  outcry  stopped  ^he  •^\e  of  them  for  xavxj  month*  and  even  yean. 
Vol.  IV. --4 


50  Carlyls'S  Life  in  London. 

selves.  Such  a  return  of  money  for  so  nmch  toil  and  endurance  of 
reproach,  and  other  things,  as  has  not  often  come  athwart  the 
Literary  Lion.  Devil  may  care  for  that,  too  !  He  says  the  ac- 
count is  all  right.  He  will  pay  you  your  bit  of  an  allowance  this 
■week,  however.  And  so  let  him  and  his  trade  ledgers  go  their 
gates  again,  '  The  little  that  a  just  man  hath  is  more  and  better 
far,  &c.,'  said  the  old  Psalmist,  a  most  true  and  comfortable  saying. 

Witli  the  end  of  September  London  and  Cliejne  Row 
came  in  sight  again.  The  repairs  were  finished.  At 
Scotsbrig,  when  the  clothes  had  come  in,  he  fonnd  him- 
self ^a  distempered  human  sonl  that  had  slept  ill,  and 
was  terribly  d added  abont :  a  phenomenon  not  qnite  nn- 
familiar  to  his  wife's  observation.'  lie  had  thought  of  a 
trip  to  lona  before  going  home,  but  the  season  was  too  far 
advanced.  A  short  visit  was  to  be  managed  to  his  friends 
in  Cumberland.  Tlien  he  would  liasten  back,  and  be  as 
amiable  as  he  could  when  he  arrived.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  in 
one  of  the  saddest  of  her  sad  letters,  had  regretted  that 
her  company  had  become  so  useless  to  him.'  '  Oh !  he 
said,  '  if  you  could  but  cease  being  conscious  of  what  your 
company  is  to  me  !  The  consciousness  is  all  the  malady 
in  that.  Ah  me  !  Ah  me  !  But  that,  too,  will  mend  if 
it  pleases  God.' 

On  the  27th  of  September  he  parted  sorrowfully  from 
his  mother  at  Scotsbrig,  after  a  wild  midnight  walk  in 
wind  and  rain  the  evening  before.  Three  days  were  given 
to  the  Speddings  at  Keswick,  and  thence,  on  pressing  in- 
vitation, he  went  to  the  Marshalls  at  Coniston,  where  he 
met  the  Tennysons,  then  lately  married.  I^either  of  these 
visits  brought  much  comfort.  Mr.  Spedding  had  gone 
with  the  rest  of  the  w^orld  in  disapproving  the  '  Latter- 
day  Pamphlets.'  At  the  Marshalls'  he  was  prevented 
from  sleeping  by  '  poultry,  children,  and  flunkeys.' 

*  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  ii.,  p.  104. 


The  Marshalh  at  Coiiiston.  61 

Love  of  the  picturesque  iB  here  (he  ^Tote  from  Coniston).  Gorge- 
ous magnificence  minus  quiet  or  any  sort  of  comfort  which  to  me, 
in  my  exceptional  thin-skinned  thrice  morbid  condition,  were 
human.  I  had  to  run  away  abiuptly  from  a  sui-vey  of  certain 
sublime  rock-passes  and  pikes,  never  t  j  be  forgotten,  lest  the  post 
should  go  without  my  writing.  Here,  avoiding  lunch,  too,  and 
taking  a  solitary  pipe  instead,  I  end  for  this  day,  feeling  myself  to 
be,  of  all  men,  by  far  the  most  miserable,  like  that  old  Greek,  yet 
knowing  well  privately  tliat  it  is  not  so,  and  begging  pity  and 
pardon  from  poor  Goody,  whom  God  bless. 

He  announced  that  lie  conld  not  stay,  that  he  must 
leave  the  next  day,  <S:c.  Every  attention  was  paid  him. 
His  room  was  changed.  Kot  a  sound  was  allowed  to 
disturb  liiui.  lie  had  a  sound  sleep,  woke  '  to  find  a 
wonderful  alteration  in  himself,  with  the  sun  shining  over 
lakes  and  mountains ; '  and  then  he  thought  he  would 
stay  '  another  day  and  still  other  days '  if  he  were  asked. 
But  he  had  been  so  peremptory  that  his  host  thought  it 
imcourteous  to  press  him  further,  and  then  he  discovered 
that  he  was  not  wanted,  'nothing  but  the  name  of  him, 
which  was  already  got.'  Mr.  Marshall  himself  accom- 
panied him  to  the  Windermere  station,  'forcing  him  to 
talk,  which  was  small  favour;'  and  the  express  train 
swept  him  back  to  London.  Men  of  genius  are  '  kittle ' 
guests,  and,  of  all  such,  Carlyle  was  the  '  kittlest.' 

His  wife  was  at  the  Grange  when  he  reached  Cheyne 
Row.  There  was  no  one  to  receive  him  but  her  dog 
Nero,  who  after  a  moment's  doubt  'barked  enthusiastic 
reception,'  and  the  cat,  '  who  sat  reflective,  without  sign 
of  the  smallest  emotion,  more  or  less.'  He  was  obliged  to 
Nero,  he  forgave  the  cat.  He  was  delighted  to  be  at 
home  again.  The  improvements  in  the  house  called  out 
his  enthusiastic  approbation.  '  Oh  Goody  ! '  he  exclaimed, 
'incomparable  artist  Goody!  It  is  really  a  series  of  glad 
surprises;  and  the  noble  grate  upstairs  !  all  good  and  best. 
My  bonny  little  artistikin.     Keally  it  is  clever  and  wise  to 


52  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

a  degree,  and  I  admit  it  is  pity  that  jou  were  not  liere  to 
sliow  it  me  yourself.  But  I  shall  find  it  all  out  too. 
Thank  you,  thank  you  a  thousand  times  ! '  The  tossing 
and  whirling  seemed  even  more  unattractive  in  the  com- 
parison. 

But  I  have  done  with  it  (he  said),  and  with  the  astonishingly 
admirable  lights  and  shadows  and  valleys  and  Langdale  pikes  and 
worship  of  the  picturesque  in  all  its  branches,  from  all  and  every 
of  which  for  the  future  '  Good  Lord  deliver  huz.'  Oh  my  poor 
Goody !  It  is  a  great  blessing  to  be  born  a  person  of  sense,  even 
with  the  temper  of  a  rat-trap.  One  must  put  up  with  the  temper  ; 
the  other  is  not  to  be  put  up  with.  Alfred  looks  really  improved, 
I  should  say  ;  cheerful  in  what  he  talks,  and  looking  forward  to  a 
future  less  detached  than  the  past  has  been.  A  good  soul,  find  him 
where  or  how  situated  you  may.  Mrs.  Tennyson  lights  up  bright 
glittering  blue  eyes  when  you  speak  to  her  ;  has  wit,  has  sense ; 
and  were  it  not  that  she  seems  so  very  delicate  in  health,  I  should 
augur  really  well  of  Tennyson's  adventure. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  distracted  at  his  return  in  her  own  ab- 
sence. She  insisted  that  she  must  go  to  him  at  once  ;  but 
she  had  been  gaining  strength  at  the  Grange,  and  the 
Ashburtons  begged  her  to  stay  on.  Carlyle  urged  it  too. 
With  pretty  delicacy  he  said,  as  if  learning  a  lesson  from 
her  being  away, '  I  shall  know  better  than  ever  I  did  what 
the  comfort  to  me  is,  of  being  received  by  you  when  I  ar- 
rive worn  out,  and  you  welcome  me  with  your  old  smiles 
and  the  light  of  a  human  fire  and  a  human  home.'  As 
she  persisted  that  she  must  go  back,  he  accepted  Lady 
Ashbur ton's  proposal  that  he  should  himself  join  his  wife 
for  a  week  or  two  before  finally  settling  in  for  the  winter  ; 
and  it  was  not  till  the  middle  of  October  that  they  were 
together  again  in  their  own  home,  when  he  summed  up 
in  his  Journal  the  experiences  of  his  wanderings.  Savage 
Landor,  whom  he  calls  "'  a  proud,  indignant,  and  remarka- 
ble old  man,'  had  pleased  him  from  sympathy  of  discon- 
tent with  the  existing  order  of  things.     His  visit  to  poor 


Summary  of  the  Year,  53 

Mr.  Redwood  he  describes  as  *  dulness  and  the  inanity  of 
worse  than  solitude.'  He  had  left  Boverton  *in  a  hu- 
mour strangely  forlorn,  sad,  and  sickly  even  for  him.'  Ho 
goes  on : — 

Four  weeks  at  Scotsbrig :  my  dear  old  mother,  much  broken 
since  I  had  last  seen  her,  was  a  perpetual  source  of  sad  and,  as  it 
were,  sacred  emotion  to  me.  Sorrowful  mostly  and  disgusting, 
and  even  degrading,  were  my  other  emotions.  God  help  me  ! 
Much  physical  suffering.  Morality  sunk  down  with  me  almost 
to  zero  so  far  as  cftusciousness  went.  Surely  there  should  be  a 
hospital  for  poor  creatures  in  such  a  condition  as  mine.  But  let 
us  not  speak.  In  the  end  of  September  I  went  over  to  Cumber- 
land. T.  Spedding  limited  and  dull.  Off  to  Coniston  for  two 
days.  Scenery,  &c.  Obliged  to  steer  for  Chelsea  by  express  ti-ain, 
and  see  whether  in  my  home  was  any  rest  for  me.  Alas !  not  there 
either.  Aiiive  about  midnight :  my  wife  gone  down  to  the 
Grange.  Nothing  for  it  but  stoicism,  of  such  sort  as  one  had, 
once  more.  In  about  a  week  go  to  the  Grange  to  join  my  wife 
there.  Spend  ten  days  amid  miscellaneous  company  in  the  com- 
mon dyspeptic,  utterly  isolated,  and  contemptible  condition. 
Home  again  on  Saturday  gone  a  week ;  and  here  ever  since  at 
least  in  a  silent  state.  I  have  still  hopes  of  writing  another  book, 
better  perhaps  than  any  I  have  yet  done  ;  but  in  all  other  respects 
this  seems  really  the  Nadir  of  my  fortunes  ;  and  in  hope,  desire, 
or  outlook,  so  far  as  common  mortals  reckon  such,  I  never  was 
more  banknipt.  Lonely,  shut  up  within  my  contemptible  and 
yet  not  deliberately  ignoble  self,  perhaps  there  never  was,  in  mod- 
ern literaiy  or  other  history,  a  more  solitaiy  soul,  capable  of  any 
friendship  or  honest  relation  to  others.  For  the  rest  I  do  in  some 
measure  silently  defy  destiny,  and  tiy  to  look  with  steady  eye  into 
it,  not  hoping  from  it  (except  that  I  might  get  some  work  well 
done),  nor  fearing  it  for  the  remnant  of  my  time  here.  Latent 
pieties,  I  do  believe,  still  lie  in  me ;  deep  wells  of  sorrow,  rever- 
ence, and  affection  ;  but  alas  !  that  is  not  the  humour  at  present, 
and  my  utmost  prayer  is  that  I  might  deal  wisely  with  that  too, 
since  it  is  the  lot  of  me. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

A.D.  1851-2.     Ml.  56-57. 

Beviews  of  the  Pamphlets — Cheyne  Eow — Parly  at  the  Grange — 
*  Life  of  Sterling ' — Reception  of  it — Coleridge  and  his  dis- 
ciples— Spiritual  optics — Hyde  Park  Exhibition — ^A  month  at 
Malvern — Scotland — Trip  to  Paris  with  Lord  Ashburton. 

There  is  a  condition  familiar  to  men  of  letters,  and  I  sup- 
pose to  artists  of  all  descriptions,  which  may  be  called  a 
moulting  state.  The  imagination,  exhausted  by  long  efforts, 
sheds  its  feathers,  and  mind  and  body  remain  sick  and 
dispirited  till  they  grow  again.  Carlyle  was  thus  moult- 
ing after  the  '  Latter-day  Pamphlets.'  He  was  eager  to 
write,  but  his  ideas  were  shapeless.  His  wings  would  not 
lift  him.  He  was  chained  to  the  ground.  Unable  to  pro- 
duce anything,  he  began  to  read  voraciously ;  he  bought  a 
copy  of  the  '  Annual  Register ; '  he  worked  entirely  through 
it,  finding  there  '  a  great  quantity  of  agreeable  and  not 
quite  useless  information.'  He  read  Sophocles  with  pro- 
found admiration.  His  friends  came  about  Cheyne  Row, 
eager  to  see  him  after  his  absence.  They  were  welcome 
in  a  sense,  but  'alas  ! '  he  confessed,  '  nobody  comes  whose 
talk  is  half  so  good  to  me  as  silence.  I  fly  out  of  the  way 
of  everybody,  and  would  much  rather  smoke  a  pipe  of 
wholesome  tobacco  than  talk  to  anyone  in  London  just 
now.  ^ay,  their  talk  is  often  rather  an  offence  to  me,  and 
I  murmur  to  myself,  Why  open  one's  lips  for  such  a  pur- 
pose ? '  The  autumn  quarterlies  were  busy  upon  the 
Pauiplilets,  and  the  shrieking  tone  was  considerably  modi- 


Reviews  of  the  Pamjpldets.  55 

fied.  A  review  of  them  by  Masson,  in  the  *  Xorth  British,' 
distinctly  pleased  Carlyle.  A  review  in  the  *  Dublin  '  he 
found  *  excellently  serious,'  and  conjectured  that  it  came 
from  some  Anglican  pervert  or  convert.  It  was  written,  I 
believe,  by  Dr.  Ward.  The  Catholics  naturally  found 
points  of  sympathy  in  so  scornful  a  denunciation  of  modern 
notions  about  liberty,  far  asunder  as  they  were,  lie  and 
they  believed  alike  in  the  Divine  right  of  wisdom  to  gov- 
ern folly.  '  The  wise  man's  eyes  were  in  his  head,  but  the 
fool  walked  in  darkness.'  This  article  provided  him  '  with 
interesting  reflections  for  a  day  or  two.'  But  books  were 
his  chief  resource  in  these  months.  A  paper  in  the  '  An- 
nual Register '  set  him  reading  Wycherley's  comedies,  not 
with  satisfaction.  He  calls  them  a  combination  of  'hu- 
man platitude  and  pravity '  seldom  equalled.  '  Faugh  ! ' 
lie  said,  'I  shut  up  the  book  last  night,  having  actually 
worked  through  the  greater  part  of  it  with  real  abomina- 
tion.' '  Scaligerana'  was  far  better.  From  this  he  made 
many  extracts.  He  calls  it  the  most  curious  daguerreotype 
likeness  of  a  great  man's  loose  talk  that  he  had  ever  seen, 

alternating  between  French  and  Latin,  between  high  and  low,  be- 
tween thick  and  thin,  the  most  free  and  easy  shovelling  out  of 
whatever  came  readiest  in  a  human  soul,  a  strange  draggly-wick'd 
tallow  candle  lighted  in  the  belly  of  a  dark  dead  past,  a  sorcerer'3 
dance  of  extinct  human  beings  and  things. 

At  intervals  he  thought  of  writing  something.  '  Ireland ' 
came  back  upon  him  occasionally  as  still  a  possibility.  A 
theory  of  education  on  the  plan  in  Goethe's  '  Wanderjahre ' 
would  give  him  scope  to  say  something  not  wholly  useless. 
These  were  the  two  subjects  which  looked  least  contempt- 
ible. There  was  English  history  too:  *  The  Conqueror,' 
'  Sir  Simon  de  Montfort,'  '  The  Battle  of  Towton.'  '  But 
what,'  he  asked  himself,  '  can  be  done  with  a  British 
Museum  under  fat  pedants,  with  a  world  so  sunk  as  ours, 
and  alas!   with  a  soul  so  sunk  and  subdued  to  its  ele- 


56  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

ments  as  mine  seems  to  be  ?      Vot/ons,  voyons  !  au  moins 
taisons  nous.^ 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea  :  December  14,  1850. 
Jane  has  taken  no  cold  yet ;  goes  out  in  some  omnibus  when- 
ever the  day  is  not  quite  wretched.  I  hear  nothing  of  her  hurt,' 
and  I  believe  it  is  getting  well,  though  she  does  not  seem  to  like 
any  speech  about  it.  I  am  myself  decidedly  better  than  when  I 
wrote  last — have,  in  fact,  nothing  wrong  about  me  except  an  in- 
curably squeamish  liver  and  stomach.  I  generally  go  out  for  an 
hour's  walking  before  bed-time  ;  the  little  snaffle  of  a  messin  called 
Nero  commonly  goes  with  me,  runs  snuffling  into  every  hole,  or 
pirrs  about  at  my  side  like  a  little  glassy  rat,  and  returns  home 
the  joyfullest  and  dirtiest  little  dog  one  need  wish  to  see.  .  .  . 
*  No  Popery '  is  still  loud  enough  in  these  parts,  and  it  is  con- 
fidently expected  these  pasteboard  Cardinals  and  their  rotten  gar- 
ments will  be  packed  out  of  this  island  in  some  way.  Ultimus 
crepitus  DiaboH,  as  Beza  said  of  the  Jesuits. 

Journal. 

December  30,  1850.  —The  year  is  wearing  out ;  life  is  wearing 
out ;  and  I  can  get  to  no  work.  Me  miserwn  !  Of  course  the  thing 
is  difflcult,  most  things  are,  but  I  continually  fly  from  it  too,  and 
my  poor  days  pass  in  the  shabbiest,  wastefullest  manner.  Ballan- 
tyne,  Maccall,  and  John  Welsh  were  with  us  on  Christmas  Day  to 
dinner.  Last  night  Kingsley  and  Darwin.  Good  is  to  be  got  out 
of  no  creature.  Lady  Bulwer  Lytton — a  most  melancholy  inter- 
view of  her  seeking.  How  the  Furies  do  still  walk  this  earth,  and 
shake  their  *  dusky  glowing  torches  '  on  men  and  women  !  Can 
do  nothing  with  the  poor  lady's  novel,  I  fear.  Yesterday  I  was 
clearing  myself  of  a  tangle  of  extraneous  letters,  &c.,  with  which 
/had  properly  nothing  to  do.  How  much  'love,'  'respect,'  'ad- 
miration,' &c.,  is  there  in  this  world  which  resembles  the  'love' 
of  dogs  for  a  dead  horse.  '  Fie  on't !  'tis  an  unweeded  garden  ;  * 
laid  then  the  sluggard  of  a  gardener.  Awake  !  Wilt  thou  never 
aw  ake,  then  ? 

Notwithstanding  the  hopes  and  resolutions  which  Car- 
lyle had  brought  back  with  him  from  Scotland,  the  do- 

1  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  i.,  p.  397. 


Life  of  Sterling,  67 

mestio  atmosphere  was  not  clear  in  Cheyne  Row,  and  liad 
not  l)een  clear  since  his  return.  Nothing  need  be  said 
about  this.  It  added  to  his  other  discomforts,  that  was 
all.  In  the  Journal  of  January  20,  there  is  this  curious 
observation : — 

It  is  man's  pai*t  to  deal  with  Destiny,  who  is  knowti  to  be  inexo- 
rable. It  is  the  woman's  more  to  deal  with  the  man,  whom,  even 
in  impossible  cases,  she  always  thinks  capable  of  being  moved  by 
human  means  ;  in  this  respect  a  harder,  at  least  a  less  dignified,  lot 
for  her. 

At  the  end  of  January  he  went  off  again  to  the  Grange, 
alone  this  time,  to  meet  an  interesting  party  there.  Thirl- 
wall,  Milnes,  the  Stanleys,  Sir  John  Simeon,  Trench,  then 
Dean  of  Westminster,  and  several  others.  He  might  have 
enjoyed  himself  if  his  spirits  had  been  in  better  order, 
*  for,  thanks  to  the  Bishop,  the  conversation  was  a  thought 
more  solid  than  was  usual.'  One  evening  it  took  a  re- 
markable form,  and  as  he  more  than  once  described  the 
scene  to  me,  I  quote  what  he  says  about  it  in  a  letter. 

Last  night  there  was  a  dreadful  onslaught  made  on — what  shall 
I  say  ?  properly  the  Church — in  presence  of  Trench  and  the  Bishop. 
Trench  affected  to  be  very  busy  reading,  and  managed  extremely 
well.  The  Bishop  was  also  grand  and  rationally  manful,  intrin- 
sically agreeing  with  almost  everything  I  said.  Poor  Simeon,  a 
gentleman  in  search  of  a  religion,  sate  stupent  in  the  whirlpool  of 
heterodox  hail,  and  seemed  to  feel  if  his  head  were  on  his  shoul- 
ders.    This  is  an  extraordinary  epoch  of  the  world  with  a  witness. 

It  was  perhaps  as  an  effect  of  this  singular  piece  of  talk, 
at  any  rate  in  discharge  of  a  long- recognised  duty,  that 
Carlyle,  on  returning  home,  set  at  once  about  his  long- 
meditated  life  of  John  Sterling.  To  leave  Sterling  any 
longer  as  an  anatomical  subject  for  the  religious  newspa- 
pers was  treason  to  his  friend's  memorv.  lie  had  waited, 
partly  from  want  of  composure,  partly  that  the  dust  might 
settle  a  little  ;  and  now,  having  leisure  on  his  hands,  and 
being  otherwise  in  the  right  mood,  he  re-read  Sterling's 


58  CarlyWs  Life  in  London, 

letters,  collected  information  from  surviving  relatives,  and 
without  difficulty — indeed,  with  entire  ease  and  rapidity — 
lie  produced  in  three  months  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
beautiful  biography  in  the  English  language.  His  own 
mind  for  the  past  year  had  been  restless  and  agitated,  but 
no  restlessness  can  be  traced  in  the  '  Life  of  Sterling.' 
The  scorn,  the  pride,  the  indignation  of  the  Pamphlets 
lies  hushed  down  under  a  stream  of  quiet  affection.  The 
tone  is  calm  and  tender.  Here,  more  than  in  any  other 
of  the  rest  of  his  writings,  he  could  give  play,  without  a 
jarring  note,  to  the  gentlest  qualities  of  his  heart  and  in- 
tellect. It  was  necessary  for  him  to  express  himself  more 
plainly  than  he  had  hitherto  done  on  the  received  religious 
creeds  ;  but  he  wrote  without  mockery,  without  exaspera- 
tion, as  if  his  angry  emotions  w^ere  subdued  to  the  element 
in  which  he  was  w^orking.  A  friend's  grave  was 'no  place 
for  theological  controversy,  and  though  he  allowed  his 
humour  free  play,  it  was  real  play,  nowhere  savagely  con- 
temptuous. Sterling's  life  had  been  a  short  one.  His 
history  was  rather  that  of  the  foi'mation  of  a  beautiful 
character  than  of  accomplished  achievement ;  at  once  the 
most  difficult  to  delineate,  yet  the  most  instructive  if  de- 
lineated successfully.  The  aim  of  the  biographer  ^as  to 
lift  the  subject  beyond  the  sordid  element  of  religious  ex- 
asperations ;  yet  it  w^as  on  Sterling's  '  religion,'  in  the  no- 
ble meaning  of  the  w^ord,  that  the  entire  interest  turned. 
Growing  to  manhood  in  an  atmosphere  of  Radicalism,  po- 
litical and  speculative.  Sterling  had  come  hi  contact  with 
the  enthusiasts  of  European  revolution.  He  had  involved 
himself  in  a  movement  in  wdiich  accident  only  prevented 
him  from  being  personally  engaged,  and  which  ended  in 
the  destruction  of  his  friends.  In  the  depression  vrhicli 
foUo^ved  he  had  fallen  under  the  influence  of  Coleridge. 
He  had  learnt  from  Coleridge  that  the  key  of  the  mystery 
of  the  universe  lay  after  all  with  the  Church  creed  rightly 


Life  of  Sterling,  SO 

understood,  and  that,  bj-  an  intellectual  legerdemain,  un- 
certainties could  be  converted  into  certainties.  The  pro- 
cess bv  which  the  wonderful  transformation  was  to  be 
effected,  Carlyle  himself  had  heard  from  the  prophet's  own 
lips,  and  had  heard  without  conviction  when  Irving  long 
before  had  taken  him  to  Highgate  to  worship. 

To  the  young  and  aident  mind,  instinct  with  pious  nobleness, 
yet  driven  to  the  grim  deserts  of  Kadicalism  for  a  faith,  Coleridge's 
speculations  had  a  charm  much  more  than  liteiury,  a  charm  almost 
religious  and  prophetic.  The  constant  gist  of  his  discoui-se  was 
lamentation  over  the  sunk  condition  of  the  world,  which  he  rec- 
ognised to  be  given  up  to  atheism  and  materialism  :  full  of  mere 
sordid  mis-beliefs,  mis-pursuits,  and  mis-results.  All  science  had 
become  mechanical,  the  science  not  of  men,  but  of  a  kind  of 
human  beavers.  Churches  themselves  had  died  away  into  a  god- 
less mechanical  condition,  and  stood  there  as  mere  cases  of  articles, 
mere  forms  of  Churches,  like  the  dried  carcases  of  once  swift  camels 
which  you  find  left  withering  in  the  thii*st  of  the  universal  desert — 
ghastly  portents  for  the  present,  beneficent  ships  of  the  desert  no 
more.  Men's  souls  were  blinded,  hebetated,  and  sunk  under  the 
influence  of  atheism  and  materialism,  and  Hume  and  Voltaii-e. 
The  world  for  the  present  was  an  extinct  world,  deserted  of  God 
and  incapable  of  well-doing  till  it  changed  its  heart  and  spirit. 
This,  I  think,  expressed  with  less  of  indignation  and  with  more  of 
long-drawn  quenilousness,  was  always  recognisable  as  the  ground 
tone,  which  truly  a  pioiis  young  heart,  driven  into  Radicalism  and 
the  opposition  party,  could  not  but  recognise  as  a  too  sorrowful 
tnith,  and  ask  the  oracle  with  all  earnestness,  'What  remedy, 
then  ? '  The  remedy,  though  Coleridge  himself  professed  to  see  it 
as  in  sunbeams,  could  not,  except  by  processes  unspeakably  diffi- 
cult, be  described  to  you  at  all.  On  the  whole,  these  dead 
Churches,  this  dead  English  Church  especially,  must  be  brought 
to  life  again.  Why  not  ?  It  was  not  dead.  The  soul  of  it  in  this 
parched-up  l)ody  was  tragically  asleep  only.  Atheistic  philosophy 
was  true  on  its  side ;  and  Hume  and  Voltaire  could  on  their  o\nx 
ground  speak  inefragably  for  themselves  against  any  Church.  But 
lift  the  Church  and  them  into  a  higher  sphere  of  argument,  they 
died  into  inanition.  The  Church  revivified  itself  into  pristine 
florid  vigour,  became  once  more  a  living  ship  of  the  desert,  and 
invincibly  bore  you  over  stock  and  stone.     But  how  ?  but  how  ? 


60  CarlyUs  Life  in  London. 

Bj  attending  to  the  'reason'  of  man,  said  Coleridge,  and  duly 
chaining  up  the  'understanding'  of  man.  The  Ve^munft  (reason) 
and  Versiand  (understanding)  of  the  Germans — it  all  turned  upon 
these  if  you  could  well  understand  them,  which  you  couldn't. 
For  the  rest,  Coleridge  had  on  the  anvil  various  books,  especially 
was  about  to  write  one  grand  book  on  the  Logos,  which  would  help 
to  bridge  the  chasm  for  us.  So  much  appeared,  however : 
Churches,  though  proved  false  as  you  had  imagined,  were  still 
true  as  you  were  to  imagine.  Here  was  an  artist  who  would  burn 
you  up  an  old  Chui-ch,  root  and  branch,  and  then,  as  the  alchemist 
professed  to  do  with  organic  substances  in  general,  distil  you  an 

*  Astral  Spirit '  from  the  ashes,  which  was  the  veiy  image  of  the 
old  burnt  article,  its  airdrawn  counteri3art.  This  you  had,  or  might 
get,  and  draw  uses  from  if  you  could.  Wait  till  the  book  on  the 
Logos  was  done ;  alas  !  till  your  own  terrene  eyes,  blind  with 
conceit  and  the  dust  of  logic,  were  purged,  subtilized,  and 
spiritualized  into  the  sharpness  of  vision  requisite  for  discerning 
such  an  '  O-m-m-m ject, '  The  ingenuous  young  English  head  of 
those  days  stood  strangely  puzzled  by  such  revelations,  uncertain 
whether  it  was  getting  inspired  or  getting  infatuated  into  flat 
imbecility ;  and  strange  effulgence  of  new  day,  or  else  of  deeper 
meteoric  night,  coloured  the  horizon  of  the  future  for  it. 

Carljle  for  himself  had  refused  to  follow  Coleridge 
into  these  airy  speculations.  He  for  one  dared  not  play 
with  trnth,  and  he  regarded  this  metaphysical  conjuring 
as  cowardly  unmanliness,  fatal  to  honesty  of  heart,  and 
useful  only  to  enable  cravens,  who  in  their  souls  knew 
better,  to  close  their  eyes  to  fact. 

What  the  light  of  your  mind  (he  says),  which  is  the  direct  in- 
spiration of  the  Almighty,  pronounces  incredible,  that,  in  God's 
name,  leave  uncredited.  At  your  peril  do  not  try  believing  that. 
No  subtlest  hocus  pocus  of  '  reason  '  versus  '  understanding  '  will 
avail  for  that  feat.  .  .  .  Only  in  the  world's  last  lethargy  can 
such  things  be  done  and  accounted  safe  and  pious.  ...  *  Do 
you  think  the  living  God  is  a  buzzard  idol,  sternly  asks  Milton, 

*  that  you  dare  address  him  in  this  manner  ? '  It  is  not  now  known, 
what  never  needed  proof  or  statement  before,  that  religion  is  not 
a  doubt — that  it  is  a  certainty,  or  else  a  mockeiy  and  hon-our ; 
that  none  of  all  the  many  things  we  are  in  doubt  about  can  by  any 


Life  of  Sterling,  61 

alchemy  bo  made  a  *  religion '  for  ns,  but  are,  and  mtist  continue, 
a  baleful  quiet  or  unquiet  hypocrisy  for  us,  and  bring — salvation, 
do  we  fancy  ?  I  think  it  is  another  thing  they  will  bring,  and  are 
on  all  hands  visibly  bringing  this  long  while. 

He  held  sternly  to  what  his  conscience  told  him,  and 
would  not  listen  to  the  Coleridgean  siren.  But  many  did 
listen,  and  ran  upon  the  fatal  shore.  Intellectual  clei-gy- 
nien  especially,  who  had  been  troubled  in  their  minds, 
imagined  that  they  found  help  and  comfort  there.  If,  as 
they  had  been  told,  it  was  a  sin  to  disbelieve  the  Church's 
creed,  then  the  creed  itself  must  rest  on  something  beyond 
probability  and  the  balance  of  evidence.  Why  not,  then, 
on  Coleridge's  *  reason '  ?  It  was  a  serious  thing  besides 
to  have  a  profession  to  which  they  were  committed  for  the 
means  of  living,  and  which  the  law  forbade  them  to  change. 
Thus,  at  the  time  when  Carlyle  was  writing  this  book,  a 
whole  flight  of  clergy,  with  Frederick  Maurice  at  their 
head  and  Kingsley  for  lieutenant,  were  preaching  regenera- 
tion on  Coleridge's  principles,  and  pei'suading  themselves 
that  '  the  sacred  river  could  run  backwards  after  all.' 
Sterling,  before  them,  had  been  carried  away  by  the  same 
illusion.  In  his  enthusiasm,  he  took  orders ;  a  few  months' 
experience  sufficed  to  show  so  true  an  intelligence  that  the 
Iligligate  philosophy  was  ' bottled  moonshine;'  and  Car- 
lyle draws  the  picture  of  him,  not  like  Julius  Hare,  as  of 
'  a  vanquished  doubter,'  but  as  *  a  victorious  believer,'  reso- 
lutely shaking  himself  clear  of  artificial  spider-webs — 
holding  fast  with  all  his  powers  to  what  he  knew  to  be 
true  and  good,  and  living  for  that,  and  that  only. 

In  Sterling's  writings  and  actions  (says  Carlyle),  were  they  capa- 
»le  of  being  well  read,  we  consider  that  there  is  for  all  true 
beai-ts,  and  especially  for  young  noble  seekers  and  strivers  towards 
what  is  highest,  a  mirror,  in  which  some  shadow  of  themselves 
and  of  their  immeasurably  complex  arena  will  profitably  present 
itself.  Here,  also,  is  one  encompassed  and  struggling  even  as 
they  now  are.     This  man  also  had  said  to  himself,  not  in  mere 


62  Carlylcs  Life  in  London. 

catechism  words,  but  with  all  his  instincts,  and  the  question 
thrilled  in  every  nerve  of  him  and  pulsed  in  every  drop  of  his 
blood,  '  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  Behold  !  I,  too,  would 
live  and  work  as  beseems  a.  denizen  of  this  universe — a  child  of 
the  Highest  God !  By  what  means  is  a  noble  life  still  possible 
for  me  here  ?  Ye  heavens,  and  thou,  earth,  oh  how  ?  '  The  his- 
tory of  this  long-continued  prayer  and  endeavour,  lasting  in  vari- 
ous figures  for  near  forty  years,  may  now,  and  for  some  time  com- 
ing, have  something  to  say  to  men.  Nay,  what  of  men  of  the 
world  ?  Here,  visible  to  myself  for  some  while,  was  a  brilliant 
human  presence,  distinguishable,  honourable,  and  loveable  amid 
the  dim  common  populations,  among  the  million  little  beautiful 
once  more  a  beautiful  human  soul,  whom  I  among  others  recog- 
nised and  lovingly  walked  with  while  the  years  and  the  hours  were. 
Sitting  now  by  his  tomb  in  thoughtful  mood,  the  new  times  bring 
a  new  duty  to  me.  Why  write  the  life  of  Sterling  ?  I  imagine  I 
had  a  commission  higher  than  the  world's — the  dictate  of  Nature 
herself  to  do  what  is  now  done.     Sic  prosit.^ 

1  Among  the  many  evidences  of  Carlyle's  interest  in  young  men  who  applied 
to  him  for  advice  and  guidance,  I  find  the  following  letter,  written  at  the  time 
jat  which  he  was  engaged  on  the  '  Life  of  Sterling,'  and  showing  that  no  occu- 
pation, however  absorbing,  could  lead  him  to  neglect  a  duty  which,  when  the 
occasion  offered,  he  always  regarded  as  sacred  : — 

'  Chelsea  :  March  9,  1850. 

'My  good  young  friend, — I  am  much  obliged  by  the  regard  which  you  en- 
tertain for  me,  and  do  not  blame  your  enthusiasm,  which  well  enough  becomes 
your  young  years.  If  my  books  teach  you  anything,  don't  mind  in  the  least 
whether  other  people  believe  it  or  not  ;  but  do  you,  for  your  own  behoof,  lay 
it  to  heart  as  a  real  acquisition  you  have  made — more  properlj%  as  a  real  mes- 
sage left  with  you,  which  you  must  set  about  fulfilling,  whatever  others  do. 
This  is  really  all  the  counsel  I  can  give  you  about  what  you  read  in  my  books 
or  those  of  others  :  practise  what  you  learn  there  ;  instantly,  and  in  all  ways, 
begin  turning  the  belief  into  a  fact,  and  continue  at  that  till  you  get  more  and 
even  more  belief,  with  which  also  do  the  like.  It  is  idle  work  otherwise  to 
write  books  or  to  read  them.  And  be  not  surprised  that  "  people  have  no 
sympathy  with  you."  That  is  an  accompaniment  that  will  attend  you  all 
your  days  if  you  mean  to  lead  an  earnest  life.  The  "  people  "  could  not  save 
you  with  their  ''  sympathy,"  if  they  had  never  so  much  of  it  to  give.  A  man 
can  and  must  save  himself,  with  or  without  their  sympathy,  as  it  may  chance. 
And  may  all  good  be  with  you,  my  kind  young  friend,  and  a  heart  stout 
enough  for  this  adventure  you  are  upon  ;  that  is  the  best  good  of  all. 

'  I  remain,  yours  very  sincerely,  '  T.  Carlyle.' 

This  is  one  of  thousands  of  such  letters,  written  out  of  Carlyle's  heart,  and 
preserved  by  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed  as  their  most  precious  pos- 
Bession. 


Life  of  Sterling,  6^ 

Sometliing  of  tlie  high  purpose  whicli  Carlyle  assigns 
to  Sterling  was  perliaps  reflected  froin  himself,  as  with  a 
lover's  portrait  of  his  mistress  ;  yet  his  account  of  him  is 
essentially  as  true  as  it  is  affectionate.  He  did  not  give 
his  esteem  easily,  and  when  it  was  given  it  was  nobly  de- 
served. I  well  remember  the  effect  wliich  the  book  pro- 
duced when  it  appeared.  He  himself  valued  it  little,  and 
even  doubted  whether  it  was  worth  publishing.  As  a 
piece  of  literary  work  it  was  more  admired  than  anything 
which  he  had  yet  written.  The  calmness  was  a  general 
surprise.  He  had  a  tranquil  command  of  his  subject,  and 
liis  treatment  of  it  was  exquisitely  delicate.  He  was  no 
longer  censuring  the  world  as  a  prophet,  but  deh'ghting  it 
as  an  artist.  The  secular  part  of  society  pardoned  the 
fierceness  with  which  he  had  trampled  on  them  for  so 
beautiful  an  evidence  of  the  tendei'ness  of  his  real  heart. 
The  religious  world  was  not  so  well  satisfied.  Anglicans, 
Protestants,  Catholics  had  hoped  from  '  Cromwell,'  and 
even  from  the  Pamphlets,  that,  as  against  spiritual  Radi- 
calism, he  would  be  on  their  side.  They  found  themselves 
entirely  mistaken.  '  Does  not  believe  in  us  either,  then  ? ' 
was  the  cry.  '  Kot  one  of  the  religiones  licatoe  will  this 
man  acknowledge.'  Frederick  Maurice's  friends  were  the 
most  displeased  of  all.  The  irreverence  with  which  he 
had  treated  Coleridge  was  not  to  be  forgiven.  From  all 
that  section  of  Illuminati  who  had  hitherto  believed  them- 
selves his  admirers,  he  had  cut  himself  off  for  ever,  and,  as 
a  teacher,  he  was  left  without  disciples,  save  a  poor  hand- 
ful who  had  longed  for  such  an  utterance  from  him.  He 
himself  gathered  no  conscious  pleasure  from  what  he  had 
done.  *  A  poor  tatter  of  a  thing,'  he  called  it,  valuable 
onh^  as  an  honest  tribute  of  affection  to  a  lost  friend.  It 
was  so  always.  The  execution  of  all  his  work  fell  so  far 
short  of  his  intention  that  when  completed  it  seemed  to  be 
worth  nothing. 


64:  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle,  Scotshrig. 

Chelsea :  AprU  5,  1851. 
I  told  the  Doctor  about  'John  Sterling's  Life,'  a  small,  insig- 
nificant book  or  pamphlet  I  have  been  writing.  The  booksellers 
got  it  away  from  me  the  other  morning,  to  see  how  much  there  is 
of  it,  in  the  first  place.  I  know  not  altogether  myself  whether  it  is 
worth  printing  or  not,  but  rather  think  that  will  be  the  end  of  it 
whether  or  not.  It  has  cost  little  trouble,  and  need  not  do  much 
ill,  if  it  do  no  great  amount  of  good.  .  .  .  Alas,  alas !  I  have 
so  many  things  still  to  wi-ite — immense  masses  of  things  ;  and  the 
time  for  writing  them  gets  ever  shorter,  and,  as  it  seems,  the  com- 
posure, strength,  and  other  opportunity  less  and  less.  We  must 
do  what  we  can.  I  am  weak,  very  irritable,  too,  under  my  bits  of 
burdens,  and  bad  company  for  anybody,  and  shall  need  a  long 
spell  of  the  country  somewhere  if  I  can  get  it.  In  general,  I  feel 
as  if  it  would  be  very  good  for  me  to  be  covered  under  a  tub  wher- 
ever I  go,  or,  at  least,  set  to  work,  like  James  Aitkins'  half-mad 
friend,  *  ay  maistly  in  a  place  hy  himseV.* 

Among  the  '  irritations '  was  a  portrait  which  had  been 
taken  of  him  in  Annandale,  and  of  which  an  engraving 
was  now  sent  to  him.  No  painter  ever  succeeded  with 
Carlyle.  One  had  made  liim  '  like  a  flayed  horse  ; '  of  the 
present  one  he  says  : — 

Three  months  ago solicited  me  to  sit  for  this  thing.  I  re- 
fused ;  she  entreated ;  I  consented,  and  here  it  is.  No  more 
abominable  blotch,  without  one  feature  of  mine,  was  ever  called 
by.  the  name  of  a  rational  man.  It  is  the  portrait  of  an  idiot  that 
has  taken  Glauber  salts  and  lost  his  eyesight.  "We  burn  it  and 
forget  it.  N.B. — Never  again  consent  to  the  like  ;  learn  generally 
to  say  'No.'  Ah!  could  I?  The  character  attached,  written  by 
some  young  man  unknown  to  me,  is  very  kind,  and  not  bad  at  all. 
To  the  fire  !     To  the  fire  ! 

This  was  nothing.  The  real  uneasiness  was  over  Uhe 
immense  masses  of  things '  on  which  he  wanted  to  write, 
and  project  after  project  rose  and  faded  before  he  conld 
see  his  way.  The  '  Exodus  from  Houndsditch  '  was  still 
one  of  them  ;  ought  he,  or  ought  he  not,  to  be  explicit  in 


spiritual  Optics,  65 

that  great  matter,  and  sketch  tlie  outlines  of  a  creed  which 
might  hereafter  be  sincerely  believed  ? 

*  Birth  of  a  cherry '  in  the  spring  of  the  year  (he  writes) ;  birth 
of  a  planet  in  the  spring  of  the  fcons.  The  All  produces  them 
alike,  builds  them  together  out  of  its  floating  atoms,  out  of  its  in- 
finite opulences.  The  germ  of  an  idea  lies  behind  tliat.  Another 
*  spiritual  world, '  its  blaze  of  splendour  as  yet  all  veiled,  hangs 
struggling  behind  those  wrecks  and  dust-clouds — Hebrew,  Greek, 
&c.     When  will  it  be  born  into  clearness  ? 

Again,  April,  1851 ; — 

In  the  spiritual  world,  as  in  the  astronomical,  it  is  the  earth  that 
turns  and  produces  the  phenomena  of  the  heavens.  In  all  manner 
of  senses  this  is  true  ;  we  are  in  the  thick  of  the  confusion  attend- 
ant on  learing  this ;  and  thus  all  is  at  present  so  chaotic  with  us. 
Let  this  stand  as  an  aphoristic  saying  ?  or  work  it  out  with  some 
lucidity  of  detail?  Most  true  it  is,  and  it  forms  the  secret  of  the 
spiritual  epoch  we  are  in. 

Attempt  to  work  it  out  Carlyle  did  in  the  two  fragments 
on  'Spiritual  Optics'  which  I  printed  in  the  second  volume 
of  his  early  life.  He  there  seems  to  say  that  something  of 
the  sort  was  expected  of  him,  and  even  obligatory  upon 
him.  But  either  he  felt  that  the  age  was  not  ripe,  or  ho 
could  not  develop  the  idea  satisfactorily,  and  he  left  what 
he  had  written  to  mature  in  some  other  mind.  '  Few  men,' 
he  says  at  this  time,  '  were  ever  more  puzzled  to  find  their 
road  than  I  am  just  now.  Be  silent!  Look  and  seek!' 
His  test  of  progress — of  the  moral  worth  of  his  own  or 
any  other  age — was  the  men  that  it  produced.  He  ad- 
mired most  of  all  things  in  this  world  single-minded  and 
sincere  people,  who  believed  honestly  what  they  professed 
to  believe,  and  lived  it  out  in  their  actions.  Properly,  he 
admired  nothing  else,  and  his  special  genius  lay  in  depict- 
ing such  ages  and  persons.  The  '  Cid,'  as  he  was  looking 
about  him  for  subjects,  tempted  him  for  a  few  weeks.  The 
story  of  the  Cid  is  the  roughest,  truest,  most  genial  of  the 
epics  of  modern  Europe,  and  some  picture,  he  thought. 
Vol.  IV.-5 


^6  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

might  be  drawn  out  of  it  of  the  stru2:gle  of  Spanish  chiv- 
ahy  with  the  Moslem.  He  read  various  books — Miiller's, 
Southey's,  &c. — with  this  view,  but  he  found,  as  everj^one 
else  has  found,  that  although  Ruj  Diaz  in  the  poem  is  as 
real  as  Achilles,  nothing  can  be  made  of  him  in  the  shape 
of  history.  Miiller  he  found  '  stilting  and  affected,  walk- 
ing as  if  he  were  \\2i\i-shati71g  /  '  other  learned  writers  osten- 
^tatious  and  windy.  'On  the  whole,'  he  said,  'I  can  make 
less  of  the  Cid  than  I  expected,  and,  in  fact,  cannot  get  any 
'clear  face  view  of  him  at  all.'  Should  he  try  William  the 
Conqueror  and  the  Norsemen  ?  This  seemed  more  feasible, 
and  his  own  sympathies — his  own  heart  itself  was  Scandi- 
navian ;  all  the  virtues  we  possessed  he  believed  to  have 
come  to  lis  out  of  our  ^N^orse  ancestry.  But  this,  too,  faded, 
and  his  mind  wandered  from  thing  to  thing.^ 

1  Had  Carlyle  turned  his  mind  to  it,  he  would  have  been  a  great  philologist. 
I  find  in  his  Note-book  at  this  period  a  remark  on  a  peculiarity  of  the  English 
language  too  valuable  to  be  omitted  : — 

'  Did  1  mark  anywhere  the  absurd  state  of  our  injinitwe  of  verbs  used  as  a 
substantive  ?  Building  is  good.  Batir  est  bo?i.  ^^dljicare  honnm  est.  Baucn 
ist  gut.  In  all  languages,  and  by  the  nature  of  speech  itself,  it  is  the  injini- 
tive  that  we  use  in  such  cases.  How,  in  the  name  of  wonder,  does  English 
aione  seem  to  give  us  the  present  participle  ?  Many  years  ago  I  perceived  the 
reason  to  be  this  :  Build  (the  verb)  was  antiently  Builden.  All  infinitives,  as 
they  still  do  in  German,  ended  in  en  ;  our  beautiful  Lmdley  Murray,  alarmed 
at  a  mispronunciation  like  "  Buildin',"  stuck  a  "g ''  to  the  end  of  it,  and  so 
here  we  are  with  one  of  the  most  perfect  solecisms  daily  in  our  mouths — a  par- 
ticiple where  a  participle  cannot  be.  I  cannot  pretend  to  give  any  specific 
appreciation  of  the  English  as  compared  with  other  languages.  It  often  seems 
to  me,  though  with  many  intrinsic  merits  and  lost  capabilities,  one  of  the 
most  barbarous  tongues  now  spoken  by  civilized  creatures ;  a  language  chiefly 
adapted  for  invoices.,  drill-sergeant  words  of  command,  and  such  like.  The 
dropping  of  the  "  g  "  ("  ge  "  in  German)  from  our  preterite  participles,  so  that 
participle  and  aorist,  except  by  position,  are  indistinguishable,  is  an  immense 
loss  of  resource  ;  your  sentence  is  thus  foot-shackled  to  an  amazing  extent. 
Other  losses,  virtual  loss  of  declension  (all  but  one  case),  of  inflexion  (almost 
altogether)  ;  these  also,  though  a  gain  of  speed  for  invoices,  «frc.,  are  a  sad  loss 
for  speech  or  writing,  and  shackle  you  very  sore.  Yet  Shakespeare  wro^e  in 
English.  Honour  the  Shakespeare  who  subdued  the  most  obstinate  material, 
and  made  it  melt  before  him.  What  will  become  of  English  ?  I  can  by  no 
means  predict  eternity  for  our  present  hidebound  dialect  of  English  ;  but  there 
is  such  a  solid  note  of  worth  in  this  language,  and  it  is  spoken  by  such  a  multi- 


Crystal  Palace.  67 

A  new  cant  came  up  at  this  epoch  to  put  Lira  out  of 
patience — Prince  Albert's  Grand  Industrial  Exhibition 
and*  Palace  of  Aladdin  in  Hyde  Park,  a  temple  for  the 
consecration  of  commerce,  &c.,  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  for  fugleman,  a  contrivance  which  was  to 
bring  in  a  new  era,  and  do  for  mankind  what  Christianity 
had  tried  and  failed  to  do.  For  such  a  thing  as  this  Car- 
lyle  could  have  no  feeling  but  contempt. 

JournaL 

April  21, 1851. — Crystal  Palace — bless  the  mark  ! — is  fast  getting 
ready,  and  bearded  figures  already  grow  frequent  on  the  streets ; 
*  all  nations  '  crowding  to  us  with  their  so-called  industry  or  osten- 
tatious frothery.  All  the  loose  population  of  London  poui*s  itself 
eveiy  holiday  into  Hyde  Park  round  this  strange  edifice.  Over  in 
Surrey  there  is  a  strange  agreeable  solitude  in  the  walks  one  has. 
My  mad  humour  is  urging  me  to  flight  from  this  monstrous  place 
— flight  'over  to  Denmark  to  learn  Norse,'  for  example.  Eveiy 
season  my  suffering  and  resistance  drives  me  on  to  some  such  mad 
project,  and  every  season  it  fails.  *  I  can't  get  out.'  There  was 
certainly  no  element  ever  contrived  in  which  the  life  of  man  was 
rendered  more  barren  and  unwholesome  than  this  same.  Not  to 
be  helped  at  present,  it  would  seem.  Heigho !  old  age  is  stem  and 
sad,  but  not  unbeautiful  if  we  could  guide  it  wisely.  Try  to  keep 
a  little  piety  in  thy  heart ;  in  spite  of  all  mad  contradictions, 
enough  to  drive  oneself  utterly  mad  if  one  had  no  patience,  try  to 
maintain  a  small  altar-flame  burning  there.     Eheu  !  eheu  ! 

May  3.  —Cold  gray  weather.  All  the  world  busy  with  their  In- 
dustrial Exhibition.  I  am  sick,  very  sad,  and,  as  usual  for  a  long 
time  back,  not  able  to  get  on  with  anything.  My  silence  and 
isolation,  my  utter  loneliness  in  this  world,  is  complete.  Never  in 
my  life  did  I  feel  so  utterly  windbound,  lame,  bewildered,  inca- 
pable of  Stirling  from  the  spot  in  any  good  direction  whatever.  Da 
war  gute  Raih  iheuer ;  and  not  even  an  attempt  towards  it  can  be 

tude  of  important  human  creatures  just  now,  that  it  has  evidently  a  great  part 
to  play  yet,  and  will  enter  largely  into  the  speech  of  the  future,  when  all 
Europe  shall  gradually  have,  if  not  one  speech,  say  three : — 1.  Teutonic— Elng- 
lish  for  the  heart  of  it,  with  Danish,  German,  Dutch,  die.  ;  2,  Roman— French 
the  head  element ;  and  S,  Sclavonic — Russian  the  ditto.  Those  will  be  grand 
times,  Mrs.  Rigmarole— oh,  jaan  satis  ! 


68  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

made.  The  human  beings  that  come  round  one  have  the  effect 
generally  upon  me  of  beings  that  can  or  will  give  me  no  help  in 
this  my  extreme  need ;  and  that  ought  not  to  be  so  unkind  as  to 
hinder  me  when  I  am  so  near  the  wall.  One  law  only  is  clear  to 
me :  Hold  thy  peace  !  Admit  not  into  thy  counsel  those  that  can- 
not have  any  business  there  ;  and,  with  shut  lips,  walk  on  the  best 
thou  with  thy  lamed  limbs  canst,  and  not  a  word  more  here  or  else- 
where. 

Poor  '  human  beings  that  came  round  liim.'  How  could 
they  help,  how  could  they  offer  to  help  ?  They  came  to 
worship.  It  was  not  for  them  to  advise  or  encourage. 
He  was  their  teacher.  They  came  to  learn  of  him  and  re- 
ceive humbly  what  lie  might  please  to  give  them — and  he 
himself  was  sick  and  moulting.  His  feverishly  active  in- 
tellect had  no  fixed  employment,  and  the  mental  juices 
were  preying  upon  themselves.  When  summer  came,  and 
the  Exhibition  opened,  London  grew  intolerable.  The 
enthusiasm  for  this  nesY  patent  invention  to  regenerate  the 
human  race  was  altogether  too  much  for  him.  He  fled  to 
Malvern  for  the  water-cure,  and  became,  with  his  wife, 
for  a  few  weeks  the  guest  of  Dr.  Gullj,  who,  long  years 
afterwards,  was  brought  back  so  terribly  to  his  remem- 
brance. After  long  wavering  he  was  beginning  seriously  to 
think  of  Frederick  the  Great  as  his  next  subject ;  if  not  a 
hero  to  his  mind,  yet  at  heart  a  man  who  had  played  a 
lofty  part  in  Europe  without  stooping  to  conventional 
cant.  With  Frederick  looming  before  him  he  went  to 
cool  his  fever  in  the  Malvern  waters.  The  disease  was  not 
in  his  body,  loudly  as  he  complained  of  it.  The  bathing, 
packing,  drinking  proved  useless — worse,  in  his  opinion, 
than  useless.  '  He  found  by  degrees  that  water,  taken  as  I 
medicine,  was  the  most  destructive  drug  he  had  ever  tried.'  / 
He  'had  paid  his  tax  to  contemporary  stupor.'  That  was 
all.  Gully  himself,  who  would  take  no  fees  from  him,  he 
had  not  disliked,  and  was  grateful  for  his  hospitality.  He 
stayed  a  month  in  all.     His  wife  went  to  her  friends  in 


Scotsbrig.  69 

Manchester ;  he  hastened  to  hide  himself  in  Scotsbrig, 
full  of  gloom  and  heaviness,  and  totally  out  of  health. 

In  a  letter  which  Mrs.  Carljle  wrote  to  him  after  they 
separated,  she  reprimanded  him  somewhat  sharply  for 
having  come  to  her,  as  she  sup]>osed,  for  a  parting  kiss, 
with  a  lighted  cigar  in  his  mouth,  and  in  the  '  Letters  and 
Memorials '  he  allowed  the  reproach  to  stand  without  ex- 
planation.' Evidently  she  had  resented  the  outrage  on 
the  spot,  and,  as  he  humbly  said,  *he  had  not  needed 
that  addition  to  make  his  lonely  journey  abundantly 
sombre.'     Yet  he  had  been  innocent  as  a  child. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyley  Manchester. 

Scotsbrig,  September  4,  1851. 
That  of  the  cigar,  at  which  you  showed  so  much  offence,  not 
much  to  my  consolation  on  the  way  homewards,  was  an  attempt  on 
my  part  to  whisper  to  you  that  I  had  given  the  maid  half  a  crown, 
nothing  more  or  other,  as  I  am  a  living  sinner.  What  you,  in  your 
kind  assiduity,  were  aiming  at,  I  in  the  frightful,  hateful  whirl  of 
such  a  scene  had  not  in  the  least  noticed  or  surmised.  You  un- 
kind woman,  unfortunate  with  the  best  intentions,  to  send  me  off 
in  that  humour  with  such  a  viaticum  through  the  manufactui'ing 
districts  !  I  thought  of  it  all  day  ;  yet  \cith  sorrow,  not  with  anger, 
if  you  will  believe  me. 

How  many  of  Carlyle's  imagined  delinquencies  in  this 
department  may  not  have  been  equally  explicable !  Of 
late  years,  even  with  her  he  had  grown  shy  and  awkward ; 
meaning  always  well,  and  failing  in  manner  from  timidity. 
At  Scotsbrig  he  soothed  himself  with  the  *  Life  of  Chal- 
mers.' 'An  excellent  Christian  man,'  he  said.  *  About  as 
great  a  contrast  to  himself  in  all  ways  as  could  be  found 
in  these  epochs  under  the  same  sky.'  He  found  his  mother 
not  ill,  but  visibly  sinking.  She  had  divined  that  all  was 
not  as  well  in  Cheyne  Row  as  it  ought  to  be.  Why  had 
not  Mrs.  Carlyle  come  too,  to  see  her  before  she  died  ? 
She  said  over  and  over  again,  '  I  wad  ha'  liked  well  to  see 

»  Vol.  ii.,  p.  11. 


TO  Carhjle^s  Life  in  London. 

Janie  ance  mair.'  All  else  was  still  and  peaceful.  The 
air,  the  home  faces,  the  honest,  old-fashioned  life,  did  for 
him  what  Malvern  and  Gully  could  not  do.  The  noise  of 
the  outside  world  reached  him  only  as  an  echo,  and  he  was 
only  provoked  a  little  when  its  disturbances  came  into  his 
close  neighbourhood. 

Father  Gavazzi  (he  says,  in  a  letter  of  September  10)  is  going  to 
harangue  them  (at  Dumfries)  to-morrow  in  Italian,  which  one 
would  think  must  be  an  extremely  unprofitable  operation  for  all 
but  the  Padre  himself.  This  blockhead,  nevertheless,  is  actually 
making  quite  a  furore  at  Glasgow  and  all  over  the  west  country, 
such  is  the  anti-Popish  humour  of  the  people.  They  take  him  for 
a  kind  of  Italian  Knox  (God  help  them  !  ),  and  one  ass,  whom  I 
heard  the  bray  of  in  some  Glasgow  newspaper,  says,  *  He  strik- 
ingly reminds  you  of  our  grand  hater  of  shams,  T.  Carlyle.'  Cer- 
tainly a  very  striking  resemblance  indeed  !  Oh,  I  am  sick  of  the 
stupidity  of  mankind — a  servum  pecus.  I  had  no  idea  till  late 
times  what  a  bottomless  fund  of  darkness  there  is  in  the  human 
animal,  especially  when  congregated  in  masses,  and  set  to  build 
Crystal  Palaces,  &c.,  under  King  Cole,  Prince  Albert  and  Com- 
pany. The  profoundest  Orcus  or  beUy  of  chaos  itself,  this  is  the 
emblem  of  them. 

Scotsbrig  lasted  three  weeks.  There  had  been  an  old 
arrangement  that  Carlyle  should  spend  a  few  days  at  Paris 
with  the  Ashburtons.  Lord  and  Lady  Ashburton  were 
now  there,  and  wrote  to  summon  him  to  join  them.  At 
such  a  command  the  effort  seemed  not  impossible,  lie 
went  to  London,  joined  Browning  at  the  South  Eastern 
Railway  station,  and  the  same  evening  found  him  at 
Meurice's.  The  first  forty-eight  hours  were  tolerable: 
'  nothing  to  do  except  amuse  himself,'  which  he  thought 
could  be  borne  for  a  day  or  two.  Lord  Ashburton  of  course 
saw  everyone  that  was  worth  seeing.  '  Thiers  came  the 
second  afternoon  and  talked  immense  quantities  of  watery 
enough  vain  matter.'  Thiers  was  followed  by  two  other 
'  men  of  letters,'  '  one  Merimee,'  '  one  Laborde,'  NichU  2u 


Tnj)  to  rar'iH.  71 

hedeuten.  The  third  and  fourth  nights  sleep  unfortunately 
failed,  with  the  usual  consequences.  He  grew  desperate, 
'  found  thai  he  had  made  a  fruitless  jump  into  a  Red  Sea 
of  mud.'  The  last  remains  of  his  patience  vanished  when 
Merimee  dared  to  say  that  he  '  thought  Goethe  an  in- 
ferior French  apprentice.'  This  was  enough  of  literature, 
lie  packed  his  bag  and  fled  home  to  Chelsea.  He  had 
better  have  stayed  out  his  time  at  Scotsbrig.  On  his  ar- 
rival he  recorded  his  Paris  adventures  in  his  Journal. 

Went  to  Paris  for  a  week,  tmvelling  with  the  Brownings,  and 
got  nothing  by  the  business  but  confusion,  pain,  disappointment ; 
total  (or  almost  total)  want  of  sleep ;  and,  in  fine,  returned  home 
by  express  train  and  Calais  packet  in  one  day  ;  glad  beyond  all 
things,  and  almost  incredulous  of  the  fact,  to  find  myself  in  my 
own  bed  again,  in  my  own  poor  hut  again,  with  the  prospect  of  ar- 
rangements that  suited  me  a  little.  Saw  at  Paris,  besides  English 
people  of  high  name,  but  small  significance,  Thiers  several  times 
— not  expressly  visiting  me — a  lively  little  Provencal  figure,  not 
dislikeable,  veiy  far  from  estimable  in  any  sense  :  item,  MerimSe — 
wooden  pedant,  not  without  conciseness,  pertinency,  and  a  certain 
sarcastic  insight — on  the  whole,  no  mortal  of  the  slightest  interest 
or  value  to  me.  To  be  at  the  trouble  of  speaking  a  foreign  lan- 
guage (so  ill)  with  such  people  on  such  topics  as  ours  was  a  per- 
petual burden  to  me.  Had  letters  to  some  others,  but  burnt  them. 
Found  some  interest  in  looking  over  the  physical  aspects  of  Paris 
again,  and  contrasting  it  and  myself  with  what  had  existed  twenty- 
six  years  before.  The  town  had  a  dirty  unswept  look  still ;  other- 
wise was  much  changed  for  the  better.  Bide  in  the  Bois  de  Bou- 
logne with  Lord  Ashburton,  horses  swift  and  good,  furnished  by 
an  Englishman — nothing  else  worth  much — roads  all  in  dust- 
whirlwinds,  with  omnibuses  and  scrubby  vehicles  ;  the  Bois  itself 
nearly  solitary,  and  with  a  soft  sandy  riding-course ;  othen^ise 
dirty,  unkempt,  a  smack  of  the  sordid  grating  everywhere  on  one*s 
ill-humour.  Ariiculate-speaking  France  was  altogether  without 
beauty  or  meaning  to  me  in  my  then  diseased  mood  ;  but  I  saw 
ti*aces  of  the  inarticulate,  industrial,  &c.,  being  the  true  France 
and  much  worthier. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

A.D.  1851-2.     ^T.  56-57. 

Purpose  formed  to  write  on  Frederick  the  Great — The  author  of 
the  *  Handbook  of  Spain  ' — Afflicting  visitors — Studies  for 
*  Frederick  ' — Visit  to  Linlathen — Proposed  tour  in  Ger- 
many —  Rotterdam  —  The  Ehine  —  Bonn — Homburg— Frank- 
furt— Wartburg — Luther  reminiscences — "Weimar — Berlin — 
Eeturn  to  England. 

For  several  years  now,  with  the  exception  of  the  short 
interval  when  he  wrote  Sterling's  life,  Carlyle  had  been 
growling  in  print  and  talk  over  all  manner  of  men  and 
things.  The  revolutions  of  1848  had  aggravated  his 
natural  tendencies.  He  liad  thought  ill  enough  before  of 
the  modern  methods  of  acting  and  thinking,  and  had  fore- 
seen that  no  good  would  come  of  them.  The  universal 
crash  of  European  society  had  confirmed  his  convictions. 
He  saw  England  hurrying  on  to  a  similar  catastrophe. 
He  had  lifted  up  his  voice  in  warning,  and  no  one  would 
listen  to  him,  and  he  was  irritated,  disappointed,  and  per- 
haps surprised  at  the  impotence  of  his  own  admonitions. 
To  go  on  with  them,  to  continue  railing  like  Timon,  was 
waste  of  time  and  breath ;  and  time  and  breath  had  been 
given  to  him  to  use  and  not  to  waste.  His  best  I'esonree, 
he  knew,  was  to  engage  with  some  subject  large  enough 
and  difficult  enough  to  take  up  all  his  attention,  and  he 
had  fixed  at  last  on  Frederick  of  Prussia.  He  had  dis- 
cerned for  one  thing  that  Prussia,  in  those  days  of  totter- 
ing thrones,  was,  or  would  be,  the  centre  of  European 


Frederick  the  Great,  73 

stability,  and  that  it  was  Frederick  who  had  made  Prussia 
what  she  was.  It  was  an  enormous  undertaking;  noth- 
ing less  than  the  entire  history,  secular  and  spiritual,  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  He  was  not  one  of  those  easy 
writers  who  take  without  inquiry  the  accredited  histories, 
and  let  their  own  work  consist  in  hashing  and  seasoning 
and  flavouring.  He  never  stated  a  fact  without  having 
himself  gone  to  the  original  authority  for  it,  knowing 
what  facts  suflFer  in  the  cooking  process.  For  Carlyle  to 
write  a  book  on  Frederick  would  involve  the  reading  of  a 
mountain  of  books,  memoirs,  journals,  letters,  state  papers. 
The  work  with  Cromwell  would  be  child's  play  to  it. 
He  would  have  to  travel  over  a  large  part  of  Germany,  to 
see  Berlin  and  Potsdam,  to  examine  battle-fields  and  the 
plans  of  campaigns.  He  would  have  to  make  a  special 
study,  entirely  new  to  him,  of  military  science  and  the  art 
of  war ;  all  this  he  would  have  to  do,  and  do  it  thoroughly, 
for  he  never  went  into  any  work  by  halves.  He  was  now 
fifty-six  years  old,  and  might  well  pause  before  such  a 
plunge.  Frederick  himself,  too,  was  not  a  man  after  Car- 
lyle's  heart.  He  had 'no  piety  '  like  Cromwell,  no  fiery 
convictions,  no  zeal  for  any  '  cause  of  God,'  real  or  im- 
agined. He  lived  in  an  age  when  sincere  spiritual  helief 
had  become  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  But  he  had  one 
supreme  merit,  that  he  was  not  a  hypocrite  :  what  he  did 
not  feel  he  did  not  pretend  to  feel.  Of  cant— either  con- 
scious cant,  or  the  '  sincere  cant'  which  Carlyle  found  to 
be  so  loathsome  in  England— there  was  in  Frederick  ab- 
solutely none.  He  was  a  man  of  supreme  intellectual 
ability.  One  belief  he  had,  and  it  was  the  explanation  of 
his  strength —a  belief  \\\  facts.  To  know  the  fact  always 
cxiftly  as  it  was,  and  to  make  his  actions  conform  to  it, 
was  the  first  condition  with  him  ;  never  to  allow  facts 
to  be  concealed  from  himself,  or  distorted,  or  pleasantly 
flavoured  with  words  or  spurious  sentiments  j  and  there- 


74  Carlyle's  Life  m  London. 

fore  Frederick,  if  not  a  religious  man,  was  a  true  man,  the 
nearest  approach  to  a  religious  man  that  Carlyle  believed 
perhaps  to  be  in  these  days  possible.  He  might  not  be 
true  in  the  sense  that  he  never  deceived  others.  Poli- 
ticians, with  a  large  stake  upon  the  board,  do  not  play 
with  their  cards  on  the  table.  But  he  never,  if  he  could 
help  it,  deceived  himself ;  never  hid  his  own  heart  from 
himself  by  specious  phrases,  or  allowed  voluntary  halluci- 
nations to  blind  his  eyes,  and  thus  he  stood  out  an  excep- 
tional figure  in  the  modern  world.  Whether  at  his  age 
he  could  go  through  with  such  an  enterprise  was  still  un- 
certain to  him;  but  he  resolved  to  try,  and  on  coming 
back  from  Paris  sat  down  to  read  whatever  would  come 
first  to  hand.  He  did  not  recover  his  good-humour. 
Lady  Ashburton  invited  Mrs.  Carlyle  to  spend  December 
with  her  at  the  Grange,  to  help  in  amusing  some  visitors. 
She  did  not  wish  to  go,  and  yet  hardly  dared  say  no.  She 
consulted  John  Carlyle. 

Heaven  knows  (she  wrote)  what  is  to  be  said  from  me  individu- 
ally. If  I  refuse  this  time,  she  will  quarrel  with  me  outright. 
That  is  her  way  ;  and  as  quarrelling  with  her  would  involve  also 
quarrelling  with  Mr.  C.  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  done  lightly.  I  wish 
I  knew  what  to  answer  for  the  best. 

Not  a  pleasant  position  for  a  wife,  but  she  made  the 
best  of  it  and  submitted.  She  went  to  the  Grange.  He 
stayed  behind  with  Jomini  and  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
patiently  reading,  attending  to  his  health,  dining  out,  see- 
ing his  friends,  and  at  least  endeavouring  to  recover  some 
sort  of  human  condition — even,  as  it  seems,  cleansing  the 
Cheyne  Row  premises  with  his  own  hands. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  at  the  Grange. 

Chelsea  :  December  8,  1851. 
On  Saturday  last  in  the  morning  I  did  what  is  probably  my  chief 
act  of  virtue  since  you  went ;  namely,  I  decided  not  to  walk,  but 
to  take  water  and  a  scrub-brush,  and  swash  into  some  degree  of 


Umoelcome  Visitors.  75 

tolerability  those  gpreasy  clammy  flags  in  the  back  area.  I  did  it 
without  rebuke  of  Anne.  I  said  she  couldn't  do  it  in  her  present 
state  of  illness ;  and  on  the  whole  proceeded,  and  found  it  decidedly 
hiird  work  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  Some  ten  or  twelve  pails 
of  water  with  vigorous  scnibbing  did,  however,  reduce  the  affair  to 
;  order,  whereupon  I  washed  myself  and  sat  down  to  breakfast  in 
victorious  peace.  '  Dirt  shall  not  bo  around  me,'  said  Cobbett,  *  so 
long  as  I  can  handle  a  broom.'  Our  weather  here  is  now  absolutely 
beautifuL  I  executed  a  deal  of  riding  yesterday,  and  after  near 
four  hours'  foot  and  horse  exercise  was  at  South  Place  little  after 
time.  ♦  Mutton  chop  with  Ford  ? ' '  There  waa  a  gi-and  dinner 
when  I  arrived  en  frac,  Mrs.  Ford,  Lawrence,  and  the  girls  all 
dressed  like  tulips ;  Anthony  (Sterling)  himself  in  white  waistcoat, 
all  very  grand  indeed.  I  was  really  provoked,  but  said  nothing. 
Happily  I  was  clean  as  new  snow,  and  had  not  come  in  my  pilot 
jacket ;  and  in  short  I  could  not  help  it.  Ford,  though  a  man 
without  humour  or  any  gracefulness  or  loveability  of  character, 
is  not  the  worst  of  men  to  dine  with  at  all ;  has  abundance  of  au- 
thentic information — not  duller  than  Macaulay's,  and  much  more 
certain  and  more  social  too — and  talks  away  about  Spanish  wines, 
anecdotes,  and  things  of  Spain.  I  got  away  about  eleven,  not  quite 
ruined,  though  not  intending  to  go  back  soon. 

December  II. 

Do  but  think :  I  have  had  a  letter  from  that  bird-like,  semi- 
idiot  son  of  poor ,  thanking  me  for  the  mention  of  his  father 

in  *  Sterling,'  and  forwarding  for  my  judgment  a  plan  to  renovate 
suffering  society !  a  big  printed  piece  with  MS.  annotations,  ac- 
companiments, &c. — an  association  to  do  it  all.  My  answer  was, 
in  brief,  *  A  pack  of  damned  nonsense,  you  unfortunate  fool ! ' 

December  12. 

Last  night,  just  as  tea  was  in  prospect,  and  the  hope  of  a  quiet, 
busy  evening  to  a  day  comijletely  lost^  enter,  with  a  loud  knock, 

poor leading  his  little  boy  ;  a  huge,  hairy,  good-humoured, 

stupid-looking  fellow  the  size  of  a  house  gable,  and  all  over  with 
hair,  except  a  little  patch  on  the  crown,  which  was  bald ;  the  boy 
noisy,  snappish,  and  inclined  to  be  of  himself  intolerable.     I  gave 

them  tea,  tried  to  talk.     Poor has  no  talent.     You  expect 

good-lnimoured  idiomatic  simplicity  at  least,  and  you  do  not  get 
even  that.     He  tarns  like  a  door  on  a  hinge  from  every  kind  of 

'  Author  of  the  *  Handbook  of  Spain,*  and  parent  of  the  whole  handbook 


76  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

opinion  or  assertion,  and  is  a  colossus  of  gossamer.  They  bored 
me  to  death,  and  at  half-past  nine,  to  complete  the  matter,  Saffi ' 
enters.  Oh,  heavens !  the  whole  night,  like  the  day,  was  a  pain- 
ful wreck  for  the  rational  soul  of  man. 

Afflictions  would  come,  but  Cai-ljle's  essentially  kind 
heart  put  up  with  them.  He  liad  to  secure  himself  more 
effectually  before  he  could  make  progress  with  Frederick, 
which  still  hung  before  him  uncertain.  He  joined  his 
wife  at  the  Grange  in  the  middle  of  the  month,  and  stayed 
out  the  year  there. 

Journal, 

January,  1852. — Took  to  reading  about  Frederick  the  Great 
soon  after  my  return  from  Paris,  at  which  work,  with  little  definite 
prospect  or  even  object — for  I  am  grown  very  poor  in  hope  and 
resolution  now — I  still  continue.  "Was  at  the  Grange  before  and 
till  New  Year's  Day,  three  weeks  in  all,  Jane  five  weeks — rode 
daily,  got  no  other  good — Lords  Lansdowne  and  Grey  ;  Thack- 
eray, Macaulay,  Twisleton,  Clough,  a  huge  company  coming  and 
going.  Lonely  I,  solitary  almost  as  the  dead.  Infinitely  glad  to 
get  home  again  to  a  slighter  measure  of  dyspepsia,  inertia,  and 
other  heaviness,  ineptitude,  and  gloom.  Keep  reading  Frederick. 
Precise,  exact,  copious,  dullest  of  men,  Archenholtz  (my  first  Ger- 
man book  near  thirty  years  ago),  Jomini,  Lloyd,  and  now  Freder- 
ick's own  writings.  I  make  slow  progress,  and  am  very  sensible 
how  lame  I  now  am  in  such  things,  Hope  is  what  I  now  want. 
Hope  is  as  if  dead  within  me  for  most  part ;  which  makes  me  affect 
solitude  and  wish  much,  if  wishing  were  worth  aught,  that  I  had 
even  one  serious  intelligent  man  to  take  counsel  with,  and  com- 
municate my  thoughts  to.  But  this  is  weak,  so  no  more  of  this ; 
know  what  the  inevitable  years  have  brought  thee,  and  reconcile 
thyself  to  it.  An  unspeakable  grandeur  withal  sometimes  shines 
out  of  all  this,  like  eternal  light  across  the  scandalous  London 
fogs  of  time.  Patience  !  courage  !  steady,  steady !  Sterling's 
Life  out,  and  even  second  edition  of  it — very  well  received  as  a 
piece  of  writing  and  portrait-painting.  Was  hedeutefs  aher  ?  Re- 
ligious reviews,  I  believe,  are  in  a  terrible  humour  with  me  and  it. 
Don't  look  at  one  of  them.  Various  foolish  letters  about  it. 
'  Latter-day  Pamphlets '  have  turned  nine-tenths  of  the  world 
*  Friend  of  Mazzini ;  ex-triumvir  of  Rome. 


Stttdlea  for  Frederick.  7T 

dreadfully  against  me — und  dds  aiich,  was  bedeuteCs  ?    Can  Freder- 
ick be  my  next  subject — or  what  ? 

Six  months  now  followed  of  steady  reading  and  excerpt- 
ing. He  went  out  little,  except  to  ride  in  the  afternoons, 
or  walk  at  midnight  when  the  day's  work  was  over.  A 
few  friends  were  admitted  occasionally  to  tea.  If  any 
called  before,  he  left  them  to  his  wife  and  refused  to  be 
disturbed.  I  was  then  living  in  Wales,  and  saw  and  heard 
nothing  of  him  except  in  some  rare  note.  In  the  Journal 
there  are  no  entiies  of  consequence  except  the  character- 
istic one  of  April  1. 

You  talk  fondly  of  *  immortal  memory,'  &c.  But  it  is  not  so. 
Our  memory  itself  can  only  bold  a  certain  quantity.  Thus  for 
every  new  thing  that  we  remember,  there  must  some  old  thing  go 
out  of  the  mind  ;  so  that  here,  too,  it  is  but  death  and  birth  in  the 
old  fashion,  though  on  a  wider  scale  and  with  singular  difference 
in  the  longevities.  Longe\'ities  run  from  3,000  years  or  more  to 
nine  days  or  less ;  but  otherwise  death  at  last  is  the  common 
doom. 

The  temper  does  not  seem  to  have  much  mended. 
There  were  small  ailments  and  the  usual  fretfulness  under 
them.  When  June  came  he  sent  his  mother  a  flourishing 
account  of  himself,  but  his  wife  added  a  sad-merry  post- 
script as  a  corrective : — 

Jnne  5. 
It  is  quite  true  that  he  is  done  with  that  illness,  and  might  liave 
been  done  with  it  much  sooner  if  he  had  treated  himself  with  or- 
dinary sense.  I  am  suiprised  that  so  good  and  sensible  a  woman 
as  yourself  should  have  brought  up  her  son  so  badly  that  he 
should  not  know  what  patience  and  self-denial  mean — merely  ob- 
serving *  Thou'st  gey  ill  to  deal  wi'.'  Gey  ill  indeed,  and  always 
the  longer  the  worse.  Wlien  he  was  ill  this  last  time,  he  said  to 
Anne  (the  servant)  one  morning,  *  I  should  like  tea  for  breakfast 
this  morning,  hut  you  need  not  hurnf*  The  fact  was,  he  was  pm*- 
posing  to  wa.sh  all  over  with  soap  and  water ;  but  Anne  didn't 
know  that,  and  thought  he  must  be  dangerously  ill,  that  he  should 
over  have  thought  of  saying  you  needn't  huny.     *  It  was  such  an 


78  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

unlikely  thing  for  the  master  to  say,  that  it  quite  made  my  flesh 
creep.'     You  see  the  kind  of  thing  we  still  go  on  with. 

He  had  decided  on  going  to  Germany  in  August.  "With 
the  exception  of  the  yacht  trip  to  Ostend,  he  had  never 
been  beyond  Paris.  Mrs.  Carlyle  liad  never  been  on  the 
Continent  at  all ;  and  the  plan  was  for  them  to  go  both 
together.  Repairs  were  needed  in  the  house  again.  He 
was  anxious  to  complete  a  portion  of  his  reading  before 
setting  out,  and  fancied  that  this  time  he  could  stay  and 
live  through  the  noise ;  but  the  workmen  when  they  came 
in  were  too  much  for  liim.  She  undertook  to  remain 
and  superintend  as  usual.  He  had  to  fly  if  he  would  not 
be  driven  mad — fly  to  Scotland,  taking  his  books  with 
him  ;  perhaps  to  his  friend  Mr.  Erskine. 

To  Thomas  Erskine,  LinlatJien. 

Chelsea  :  July  12,  1852. 
Dear  Mr.  Erskine, — I  foresee  that,  by  stress  of  weather  and  of 
other  evil  circumstances,  I  shall,  in  spite  of  my  reluctance  and  in- 
ertia, he  driven  out  of  this  shelter  of  mine — where  I  have  already 
fled  into  the  topmost  corner  with  a  few  books ;  and,  aided  by  a 
watering-pot,  would  so  gladly  defend  myself  as  at  first  I  hoped  to 
do.  The  blaze  of  heat  is  almost  intolerable  to  everybody ;  and 
alas !  we,  in  addition,  have  the  house  full  of  workers,  armed  with 
planes,  saws,  pickaxes,  dust-boxes,  mortar-hods,  the  two  upper 
storeys  getting  a  '  complete  repair  '  which  hitherto  fills  everything 
with  noise,  dust,  confusion,  and  premonitions  of  despair.  I  fore- 
see, especially  if  this  hot  weather  holds,  that  I  shall  have  to  run. 
My  wife,  who  is  architect  and  factotum,  will  retire  to  som^  neigh- 
bour's house  and  sleep  ;  but  cannot  leave  the  ground  till  she  see 
these  two  upper  storeys  made  into  her  image  of  them.  I  have 
fled  into  a  dressing-room  far  aloft ;  sit  there  very  busy  with  cer- 
tain books,  also  with  watering-pot,  which,  all  carpets  &c.  being 
off,  is  a  great  help  to  me.  Here  I  would  so  gladly  hold  out ;  but 
in  spite  of  wholesome  and  unwholesome  inertias,  shall  too  prob- 
ably be  obliged  to  fly.  Whitherward  ?  is  now  the  question,  and  I 
am  looking  round  on  various  azimuths  to  answer  the  same.  Tell 
me,  if  you  are,  or  are  likely  to  be,  tolerably  solitary  for  a  ten  days 


Visit  to  Idrdathen,  79 

at  Linkthen,  and  about  what  time.  A  draught  attracts  me  thither, 
so  as  to  few  other  places.  But  alas  !  in  evei'if  way  there  lie  lions 
for  me,  weak  in  body  and  strong  in  imagination  as  I  am.  It  seems 
sometimes  as  if,  could  you  leave  me  daily  six  hours  strictly  private 
for  my  German  reading,  and  send  me  down  once  a  day  to  bathe  in 
your  glorious  sea,  I  could  try  well  not  to  be  sulky  company  at 
other  hours,  and  might  do  very  well  beside  so  friendly  a  soul  as 
yours  is  to  me  always.  Tell  me,  at  any  rate,  how  you  are  situated, 
and  regard  this  pious  thought,  whether  it  becomes  an  action  or 
not,  as  proof  of  my  quiet  trust  in  you.    Hearty  good  wishes  to  alL 

Yours  ever  truly, 

T.  CABLYIiE. 

Erskine,  who  loved  Carlyle  and  delighted  in  his  com- 
pany, responded  with  a  hearty  invitation,  and  on  July  21, 
the  weather  still  flaming  hot,  Carlyle  dropped  down  the 
river  in  a  boat  from  Chelsea  to  the  Dundee  steamer,  which 
was  lying  in  the  Pool,  his  wife  and  Nero  accompanying 
to  see  him  off.  She  was  delighted  that  he  should  go,  for 
her  own  sake  as  well  as  for  his.  When  he  was  clear  off, 
she  could  go  about  her  work  with  a  lighter  heart.  She 
writes  to  tell  John  Carlyle  of  his  brothers  departure,  and 
goes  on  : — 

Noise  something  terrific.  In  superintending  all  these  men,  I 
begin  to  find  myself  in  the  career  open  to  my  particular  talents, 
and  am  infinitely  more  satisfied  than  I  was  in  talking  *  wits '  in  my 
white  silk  gown,  with  white  feathers  in  my  head,  at  soirees  at  Bath 
House,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  It  \s  such  a  consolation  to  bo 
of  some  ttsey  though  it  is  only  in  helping  stupid  carpenters  and 
bricklayers  out  of  their  impossibilities,  &c.  ;  especially  when  the 
ornamental  no  longer  succeeds  with  one  as  well  as  it  has  done.  The 
fact  is,  I  am  remarkably  indifferent  to  material  annoyances,  con- 
sidering my  morbid  sensitiveness  to  moral  ones  ;  and  when  Mr. 
C.  is  not  here  recognising  it  with  his  overwhelming  eloquence, 
I  can  regard  the  present  earthquake  as  something  almost  laugh- 
able. 

He  meanwhile  was  reporting  his  successful  arrival  in 
Fife. 


80  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Linlathen  :  July  23,  1852. 
Ton  and  Nero  vanishing  amid  the  ships  of  the  Pool  were  a  wae 
kind  of  sight  to  me  in  my  then  and  subsequent  condition  of  imag- 
ination. ...  'I  got  on  very  well  in  the  steamer,  was  nearly 
■Uerly  silent,  found  everybody  civil,  and  everything  tolerably  what 
It  should  be.  The  weather  was  of  the  best.  That  first  evening, 
with  the  ships  all  hanging  in  it  at  the  Thames  mouth  like  black 
shadows  on  a  ground  of  crimson,  was  a  sight  to  make  anybody 
give  way  to  the  picturesque  for  a  few  minutes.  I  passed  almost 
all  my  time  in  reading ;  smoked  too,  and  looked  with  infinite  sor- 
row, yet  not  unblessed  or  angry  sorrow,  into  the  continent  of 
chaos,  as  is  my  sad  wont  on  such  occasions.  I  contrived  to  get  a 
berth,  by  good  management,  where  I  had  a  door  to  shut  upon 
myself,  and  a  torrent  of  wind  running  over  me  all  night,  where  ac- 
cordingly I  managed  to  sleep  tolerably  well  both  nights,  and  am 
really  better,  rather  than  worse.  Give  Nero  a  crumb  of  sugar  in 
my  name. 

July  26. 
Thanks,  many  thanks,  for  the  note  I  got  this  morning.  You 
know  not  what  a  crowd  of  ugly  confusions  it  delivered  me  from, 
or  what  black  webs  I  was  weaving  in  my  chaotic  thoughts  while  I 
heard  nothing  from  you  here  .  .  .  for  I  am  terribly  bilious, 
though  it  might  be  hard  to  say  why  ;  everything  is  so  delightful- 
ly kind  and  appropriate  here — weather,  place,  people,  bedrooih, 
treatment  all  so  much  *  better  than  I  deserve.'  But  one's  imagi- 
nation is  a  black  smithy  of  the  Cyclops,  where  strange  things  are 
incessantly  forged.  .  .  .  The  good  Thomas  and  all  the  rest 
religiously  resj)ect  my  six  hours,  and  hitherto  I  have  always  got  a 
fair  day's  work  done.  I  sit  in  my  big  high  bedroom,  hear  nothing 
but  the  sough  of  woods,  have  a  window  flung  clean  up,  go  out  and 
smoke  at  due  intervals,  as  at  home,  &c.  In  fact,  I  am  almost  too 
well  cared  for  and  attended  to.  The  only  evil  is  that  they  will 
keep  me  in  talk.  Alas  !  how  much  happier  I  should  be  not  talk- 
ing or  talked  to  !  I  require  an  effort  to  get  my  victuals  eaten  for 
talk. 

This  was  too  good  to  last.  Carlyle  would  not  have  been 
Carlyle  if  he  had  been  even  partially  contented  for  a  week 
together.     The  German  problem  seemed  frightful  as  the 


YM  to  Lirdatlien.  81 

time  drew  on.  Travelling  of  all  kinds  was  horrible  to 
him.  '  Frederick  was  no  sufficient  inducement  to  lead 
him  into  such  sufferings  and  expenses.'  '  Shall  we  cower 
into  some  nearest  hole,'  he  said,  *  and  leave  Germany  to 
*the  winds?  I  am  very  weary  of  all  locomotion,  of  all 
jargon  talk  with  my  indifferent  brethren  of  mankind. 
"  She  said,  I  am  aweary,  a-weary."  I  am  very,  very 
weary,  truly  so  could  I  say  ;  and  the  Rankes,  Yarnhagens, 
and  other  gabbling  creatures  one  will  meet  there  are  not 
very  inviting.'  Linlathen  itself  became  tedious :  he  ad- 
mitted that  all  the  circumstances  were  favourable — the 
kindest  of  hosts,  the  best  of  lodging  ;  '  but  the  wearisome 
was  in  permanence  there.'  It  was  only  by  keeping  as 
nnich  alone  as  possible  that  he  managed  to  get  along. 
'  Oh,  Goody ! '  he  cried,  '  have  pity  on  me  and  be  patient 
with  me  ;  my  heart  is  very  lonely  sometimes  in  this  world.' 
They  would  make  him  talk,  that  was  the  offence ;  yet  it 
was  his  own  fault.  His  talk  was  so  intensely  interesting, 
so  intensely  entertaining.  Xo  one  who  heard  him  flowing 
on  could  have  guessed  at  the  sadness  which  weighed  upon 
him  when  alone.  Those  bursts  of  humour,  flashing  out 
amidst  his  wild  flights  of  rhetoric,  spoke  of  anything  but 
sadness ;  even  the  servants  at  places  where  he  dined  had 
to  run  out  of  the  room,  choking  down  their  laughter.  The 
comic  and  the  tragic  lie  close  together,  inseparable  like 
light  and  shadow,  as  Socrates  long  ago  forced  Aristophanes 
himself  to  acknowledge.  He  escaped  to  Scotsbrig  after  a 
fortnight  with  the  Erskines,  and  there  he  hoped  his  wife 
would  join  him.  But  the  work  at  Cheyne  Row  lingered 
on,  and  was  far  from  completion.  He  felt  that  he  ought 
to  go  to  Germany  ;  yet  he  was  unwilling  to  leave  her  be- 
hind him.  She  had  looked  forward  with  some  eagerness 
to  seeing  a  foreign  country,  and  Carlyle  knew  it.  '  You 
surely  deserve  this  one  little  pleasure,'  he  said  ;  '  there  are 
so  few  you  can  get  from  me  in  this  world.'  To  himself  it 
Vol.  IV.— 6 


82  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

would  be  no  pleasure  at  all.  '  Curtainless  beds,  noisy, 
sleepless  nights'  were  frightful  to  contemplate.  He,  in- 
dividually, was  '  disheartened,  dyspeptical,  contemptible  in 
some  degree  ; '  still,  for  her  sake,  and  for  the  little  bit  of 
duty  he  could  get  done,  he  was  ready  to  encounter  the 
thing.  Especially  he  wished  her  to  come  to  him  at  Scots- 
brig.  She  had  held  aloof  of  late  years,  since  things  had 
gone  awry.  ^My  poor  "old  mother,'  he  wrote,  *  comes  in 
with  her  sincere,  anxious  old  face :  "  Send  my  love  to 
Jane,  and  tell  her"  (this  with  a  wae-ish  tone)  "I  would 
like  right  w^eel  to  have  a  crack  ^  wi'  her  ance  mair."  ' 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  still  unable  to  come  away  from  Chel- 
sea, but  she  was  alarmed  at  the  extreme  depression  of  his 
letters.     He  reassured  her  as  well  as  he  could. 

August  12. 
Don't  bother  yourself  (he  said)  about  my  health  and  spirits. 
That  is  not  worse  at  all  than  usual ;  nay,  rather  it  is  better,  espe- 
cially to-day,  after  a  capital  sleep — my  best  for  six  weeks  ;  nor  is 
the  gloom  in  my  mind  a  whit  increased.  It  is  the  nature  of  the 
beast;  and  he  lives  in  a  continual  element  of  black,  broken  by 
lightnings,  and  cannot  help  it,  poor  devil ! 

Pie  concluded  that  he  must  go  to  Germany.  She,  if 
thing^s  were  well,  might  come  out  afterwards,  and  join  him 
in  Silesia.  He  found  that  '  he  did  not  care  much  for 
Frederick  after  all ; '  but  ^  it  would  be  disgraceful  to  be 
beaten  by  mere  travelling  annoyances.' 

My  own  private  perception  (he  said,  a  few  days  later)  is  that  I 
shall  have  to  go — that  I  shall  actually  be  shovelled  out  to-morrow 
week  into  a  Leith  steamer  for  Rotterdam,  a  result  which  I  shudder 
at,  but  see  not  how  to  avoid  with  the  least  remnant  of  honour.  I 
wait,  however,  for  your  next  letter,  and  the  candid  description  of 
your  o.wn  capabilities  to  join  me,  especially  the  xchen  of  that ;  and, 
on  the  whole,  am  one  *  coal  of  burning  sulphur ' — one  heap,  that 
is  to  say,  of  chaotic  miseries,  horrors,  sorrows,  and  imbecilities, 
actually  rather  a  contemptible  man.  But  the  ass  does  swim,  I 
sometimes  say,  if  you  fling  him  fairly  into  the  river,  though  he 

»  Crack,  conversation. 


To  go  io  Oermany  or  not  88 

brays  lamentably  at  being  flung.     Oh,  my  Goody  1  my  own,  or  not 
my  own,  Goody  I  is  there  no  help  at  all,  then  ? 

Letter  followed  letter,  in  the  same  strain.  It  was  not 
jest,  it  was  not  earnest ;  it  was  a  mere  wilfulness  of  hu- 
mour. He  told  her  not  to  mind  what  he  said  ;  *  it  was  the 
mere  grumbling  incidental  to  dyspepsia  and  the  load  of 
life.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  the  nature  of  the  beast,  and 
was  to  be  put  np  with,  as  the  wind  and  the  rain.*  She 
had  to  decide,  perhaps  prudently,  that  she  could  not  go, 
either  with  him  or  after  him.  *  The  wind  and  the  rain,' 
with  the  aggravation  of  travelling,  would  probably  rise  to 
a  height.  He  himself  was  heartily  disappointed.  *I  do 
grudge,'  he  said,  *  to  go  to  Germany  without  you,  and  feel 
as  if  half  the  sclieme  were  gone  on  that  account.'  He  was 
a  little  ashamed,  too.  It  was  harvest- time  at  Scotsbrig, 
and  men  and  women  were  all  busy  with  the  shearing. 

These  rugged  Annandale  shearers  (he  said)  ought  to  put  a  K(^f- 
hdnger  hke  me  to  shame.  In  Germany,  whether  I  slept  or  not,  the 
odious  captivity  to  indolence,  incompetence,  and  do-nothingism 
which  encircles  me  at  present  would  be  cast  off  at  least.  Life  any- 
where will  swallow  a  man,  unless  he  rise  and  vigorously  try  to 
swallow  it. 

He  gathered  himself  together  for  the  effort.  On  August 
25  he  wrote : — 

Last  night  I  slept  much  better,  and,  indeed,  except  utter  dis- 
piritment  and  indolent  confusion,  there  is  nothing  essential  that 
ails  me.  '  Jist  plain  mental  awgony  in  my  ain  inside,'  that  is  all ; 
which  I  can  in  a  great  manner  cure  whenever  I  like  to  rise  and  put 
my  finger  in  the  pipie  o'  t. 

And  on  the  27th : — 

Yesternight,  before  sunset,  I  walked  solitary  to  Stookbridge  hill 
top,  the  loneliest  road  in  all  Britain,  where  you  go  and  come  some 
three  miles  without  meeting  a  human  soul.  Strange,  earnest  light 
lay  upon  the  mountain-tops  all  round,  strange  clearness  ;  solitude 
as  if  personified  upon  the  near  bare  hills,  a  silence  everywhere  as 
if  premonitory  of  the  grand  eternal  one.     I  took  out  your  letters 


84  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

aDd  read  them  over  again,  but  I  did  not  get  much  exhilaration 
there  either.  On  the  whole,  I  was  very  sore  of  heart,  and  pitied 
my  poor  Jeannie  heartily  for  all  she  suffers  ;  some  of  it  that  I  can 
mend  and  will ;  some  that  I  cannot  so  well,  and  can  only  try. 
God  bless  thee  ever,  dear  Jeannie !  that  is  my  heart's  prayer,  go 
where  I  may,  do  or  suffer  what  I  may. 

All  this  came  from  his  heart,  and  she  knew  it  well. 
She  never  doubted  his  heart;  but,  in  the  midst  of  his 
emotions,  he  had  forgotten  his  passport,  and  had  to  in- 
struct her  to  go  with  the  utmost  liaste  to  the  proper 
quarters  to  procure  one,  and  she  would  have  desired  him 
to  feel  less  and  to  consider  more. 

It  is  much  to  be  wished  (she  wrote  to  his  brother)  that  Mr.  O. 
could  learn  not  to  leave  everything  to  the  last  moment,  throwing 
everybody  about  him,  as  well  as  himself,  into  the  most  needless 
flurry.  I  am  made  quite  ill  with  that  passport ;  had  to  gallop 
about  in  street-cabs  hy  the  hour,  like  a  madwoman,  and  lost  two 
whole  nights'  sleep  in  consequence — the  first  from  anxiety,  the 
second  from  fatigue. 

All  was  settled  at  last — resolution,  passport,  and  every- 
thing else  that  was  required  ;  and  on  Sunday,  August  30, 
Carlyle  found  himself  '  on  board  the  greasy  little  wretch 
of  a  Leitli  steamer,  laden  to  the  water's  edge  with  pig- 
iron  and  herrings,'  bound  for  the  country  whose  writers 
had  been  the  guides  of  his  mind,  and  whose  military  hero 
was  to  be  the  subject  of  his  own  greatest  work.  He 
reached  Rotterdam  at  noon  on  September  1.  He  was  not 
to  encounter  the  journey  alone.  Mr.  !Neuberg  was  to  join 
him  there,  a  German  admirer,  a  gentleman  of  good  pri- 
vate fortune,  resident  in  London,  who  had  volunteered 
his  services  to  conduct  Carlyle  over  the  Fatherland,  and 
afterwards  to  be  his  faithful  assistant  in  the  ^  Frederick ' 
biography.  In  both  capacities  Neuberg  was  invaluable, 
and  Carlyle  never  forgot  liis  obligation  to  him.  His 
letters  are  the  diary  of  his   adventures.      They  are   ex- 


At  Bonn,  85 

tremely  long,  and  selections  only  can  be  given  here,  lie 
went  first  to  Bonn,  to  study  a  few  books  before  going 
farther. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  Clielsea. 

Bonn  :  Sunday,  September  6,  1852. 
Thank  thee  very  much,  dear  Jeannie,  for  the  letter  of  yester- 
day, which  lay  waiting  to  refresh  me  in  the  afternoon  when  I  re- 
turned from  my  dusty  labours  in  the  library  here.  It  seemed  to 
me  the  kindest  I  had  got  from  you  this  long  •  while,  almost  like 
the  old  ones  I  used  to  get ;  and  any  letter  at  all,  so  anxious  and 
impatient  hatl  I  grown,  would  have  been  right  welcome.  My 
journey  has  had  nothing  that  was  not  pleasant  and  lucky  hitherto. 
At  Bonn  here,  on  my  anival,  there  lay  nothing  for  me  except  a 
note  from  Lady  Ashburton,,  enclosing  the  introduction  from 
Lord  A.  to  the  Ambassador  at  Berlin — not  a  first-rate  comfort  to 
me.  I  must,  or  should,  acknowledge  it  to-day ;  but  writing  of 
all  kinds  in  these  sad  biliary  circumstances,  with  half-blind  eyes, 
and  stooping  over  low  rickety  tables  is  perfectly  unpleasant  to 
me.  .  .  .  Well,  but  let  me  say  I  got  beautifully  up  the 
Rhine ;  stuck  by  the  river  all  day,  all  night,  and  the  second 
afternoon  found  Neuberg  waiting  here  on  the  beach  for  me.  Alas ! 
at  Rotterdam  I  had  slept  simply  none  at  all,  such  was  the  force  of 
noisy  nocturnal  travellers,  neighbours  snoring,  and  the  most  in- 
dustrious cocks  I  ever  heard.  Tlie  custom-house  officers,  too,  had 
spoilt  the  lock  of  my  portmanteau,  and,  on  the  whole,  I  was  in 
such  a  whirl  of  storm-tost  flurries  and  confusions — God  help  me, 
wretched,  thin-skinned  mortal  that  I  am !  At  five  a.m.  next 
morning  I  was  in  a  precious  humour  to  rise,  and  settle  with  unin- 
telligible waiters  and  Gennan  steambo&t  clerks,  and  get  myself, 
on  any  terms,  on  board.  On  board  I,  got,  however,  and  the  place 
proved  infinitely  better  than  I  hoped  ;  some  approach  to  Chris- 
tian food  to  be  had  in  it,  some  real  sleep  even  ;  indeed,  the  prin- 
cipal sleep  I  have  yet  had  since  Friday  gone  a  week  was  four 
hours,  and  again  foui*  hours,  deep,  deep,  lying  on  the  cabin  sofas, 
amid  the  general  noises,  in  that  respectable  vessel.  I  spoke  Ger- 
man too,  being  the  one  Englishman  on  board,  made  agreeable 
acquaintances,  &c.  Ac.  The  Rhine,  of  a  vile  reddish-drab 
coloui',  and  all  cut  into  a  reticulary  work  of  branches,  flowing 
through  an  absolutely  flat  country,  lower  than  itself  was  far 
from  beautiful  about  Rotterdam,  and  for  a  fifty  miles  higher,  but 


86  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

it  was  highly  curious,  and  worth  seeing  once  in  a  way  ;  a  country 
covered  with  willows,  bukushes,  and  rich  woods,  kept  from 
drowning  by  windmill  pumps.  One  looked  with  astonishment 
upon  it,  and  with  admiration  at  the  invincible  industry  of  man.' 
Higher  up  (towards  4  p.m.  of  the  first  day)  the  river  gets  decided- 
ly agreeable  ;  and  about  Cologne,  twenty  miles  below  this,  a 
beautiful  mountain  group,  Sieben  Gebirge,  the  Seven  Hills,  which 
are  still  some  five  or  seven  miles  beyond  us  here,  announces  that  the 
'  picturesque  '  is  just  going  to  enter  on  the  scene.  Much  good  may 
it  do  us  !  We  had  beautiful  weather  all  the  way,  and  yet  have. 
But  surely  the  most  picturesque  of  all  objects  was  that  of  Neu- 
berg,  standing  on  the  beach  here  to  take  me  out  of  all  that 
puddle  of  foreign  things,  and  put  me  down,  as  I  hoped,  in  some 
place  where  I  might  sleep  and  do  nothing  else  for  several  days  to 
come. 

Neuberg's  kindness  nothing  can  exceed  ;  but  as  to  the  rest  of  it, 
as  to  sleep  in  particular,  I  find  the  hope  to  have  been  somewhat 
premature.  Oh  heavens  !  I  wonder  if  the  Devil  anywhere  ever 
contrived  such  beds  and  bedrooms  as  these  same  are.  And  two 
cocks  are  industrious  day  and  night  under  the  back  window,  &c. 
&c.  But,  upon  the  whole,  I  have  slept  every  night  here  more  or 
less,  and  am  decidedly  learning  to  do  it ;  and  Neuberg  asserts  that 
I  shall  become  expert  by-and-by. 

Yesterday,  as  my  first  day's  work,  I  went  to  the  University 
Library  here ;  found  very  many  good  books  unknown  to  me 
hitherto  on  Vater  Fritz  ;  took  down  the  titles  of  what  on  inspec- 
tion promised  to  be  useful ;  brought  home  some  twenty  away  with 
me,  and  the  plan  at  present  is  that  N.  and  I  shall  go  with  them  to 
a  rural  place  in  the  Sieben  Gebirge,  called  Eoland's  Eck,  for  one 
week,  where  sleep  is  much  more  possible,  and  there  examine  my 
twenty  books  before  going  farther,  and  consider  what  is  the  best 
to  be  done  farther. 

September  9. 

A  letter  from  my  Jeannie  will  surely  be  one  of  the  joyfullest  oc- 
currences that  can  befall  me  in  these  strange,  sleepless,  nervous, 
indescribable  foreign  parts.  Oh,  my  own  dear  little  soul,  would 
to  God  I  were  in  our  own  little  cabin  again,  even  in  sooty  London, 
since  not  under  the  free  sky  anywhere  !  That  would  be  such  a 
blessing ;  and  it  seems  to  me  I  shall  be  rather  unwilling  to  get 
upon  the  road  again  were  I  once  fairly  home. 

Last  Sunday  when  I  ended  we  were  just  going  to  Boland's  Eck, 


At  Bonn.  87 

a  terrestrial  Paradise  and  water-cure  which  Neuberg  and  the 
world  recommended  as  every  way  eligible.  Well,  the  little 
journey  took  effect,  though  under  difficulties  and  mismanage- 
ments. But  the  'place'!  It  was  beautiful  exceedingly;  but  it 
was  as  little  like  sleeping  in  as  Cremonie  Gardens  might  be,  and  I 
turned  back  from  it  with  horror.  Home  again,  therefore,  in  the 
cool  dusk,  and  next  day  trial  of  a  small,  sequestered  village  called 
Hunef,  at  the  foot  of  the  Sieben  Gebirge,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  where  N.  went  to  seek  a  lodging  for  me  in  which  human 
sleep  might  be  possible.  Not  entirely  to  distress  the  good  N.,  I 
consented,  though  with  shuddering  reluctance,  to  try  one  of  his 
eligiblest  places,  and  accordingly  I  packed  on  the  morrow  and  pro- 
ceeded thither  to  take  possession.  What  a  nice  long  letter  I  pro- 
posed to  write  to  my  poor  Goody  out  of  that  sti'ange  place,  the 
heart  of  a  real  German  D'Orflein  in  the  lap  of  the  hills,  when  once 
I  should  have  had  a  night's  sleep !  Neuberg  waited  in  the  inn  till 
next  morning  to  see  how  I  should  do.  Ach  Gott !  of  all  the  places 
ever  discovered,  even  in  Germany,  that  Hundehof  surely  was  the 
most  intolerable  for  noise.  A  .bed,  as  everywhere  in  Germany, 
more  like  a  butcher's  tray  or  a  big  washing-tub  than  a  bed,  with 
pillows  shaped  like  a  wedge  three  feet  broad,  and  a  deep  pit  in 
the  middle  of  the  body,  without  vestige  of  curtains,  the  very 
windows  curtainless,  and  needing  to  be  kept  wide  open— for  there 
is  no  fire-place  or  other  hole  at  all — if  you  will  have  any  air. 
There  you  will  have  to  sleei?  or  die,  go  where  you  will  in  this 
country.  Then  for  noise — loud  gossip  in  the  street  till  towards 
midnight,  tremendous  peals  of  bells  from  the  village  church 
(which  seems  to  have  been  some  cathedral,  such  force  of  bells  is 
in  it),  close  by  one's  head,  watchman's  horn  of  the  loudness  and 
tone  of  a  jackass,  and  a  general  Sanhedrim  apparently  of  all  the 
cats  and  dogs  of  nature.  That  was  my  Nacldlagei'  on  the  night  of 
Tuesday,  when,  nevertheless,  I  did  get  about  three  hours'  sleep, 
did  greatly  admire  and  esteem  the  good-natured,  faithful  ways  of 
tlie  poor  villagers,  smoked  two  or  three  times  out  of  my  %\indow, 
and,  on  tlie  whole,  was  not  so  unhappy  at  all,  and  had  thoughts 
of  my  loved  ones  far  away  which  were  pious  mther  than  otherwise. 
Neuberg,  at  the  meeting  on  the  mon'ow,  agreed  tliat  we  must  in- 
stantly get  oflf  towards  Homburg,  perhaps  towards  Nassau,  Ems, 
Ac,  but  always  ultimately  through  Frankfurt.  At  Homburg,  if 
at  no  other  of  these  places,  a  week's  quiet  reading  might  be  pos- 
sible, and  he  could  send  the  books  back  to  Bonn.     ...     So 


88  Cai'lyle^s  Life  in  London. 

stands  it,  then  :  to-morrow  at  eight  we  sail,  pass  Coblentz  towards 
Frankfurt.     One  can  get  out  and  stay  where  one  likes. 

Some  professors  have  come  athwart  me — none  that  I  could  avoid 
— *  miserable  creatures  lost  in  statistics.'  Old  Arndt,  a  sturdy  old 
fellow  of  eighty-three,  with  open  face,  loud  voice,  and  the  liveliest 
hazel  eyes,  is  the  only  one  I  got  even  momentary  good  of.  lo  non 
cerco  nessuno,  and  find  Gelehrten  in  particular  less  and  less  charm- 
ing to  me.  The  river  is  grand  and  broad,  the  country  rather  pic- 
turesque and  very  fertile  and  pleasant,  though  the  worst-cultivated 
in  creation,  a  Lothian  farmer  would  say  ;  the  people  sonsie,  indus- 
trious, in  their  stupid  way,  and  agreeable  to  look  on,  though  tend- 
ing towards  ugliness.  Tobacco  perpetually  burning  everywhere. 
Many  Jews  abroad.  Travellers,  if  not  English,  are  apt  to  be  rich 
Jews,  with  their  Jew^esses,  I  think.  Neuberg  is  not  bright,  but  full 
of  kindness  and  solid  sense.  Let  not  my  poor  Goody  fret  herself 
about  me.  I  am  really  wonderfully  well,  in  spite  of  these  outer 
tribulations  and  dog  concerts,  and  doubt  not  I  shall  do  my  journey 
without  damage  if  I  take  care. 

Homburg :  September  15. 

We  did  get  out  of  Bonn  fairly  on  Friday  morning.  At  first 
wefctish,  but  which  dried  and  brightened  by  degrees.  ...  Of 
the  Ehine  you  shall  hear  enough  by-and-by.  It  is  verily  a  '  noble 
river,'  much  broader  than  the  Thames  at  full  tide,  and  rolling  along 
many  feet  in  depth,  with  banks  quite  trim,  at  the  rate  of  four  or 
five  miles  an  hour,  icithout  voice,  but  full  of  boiling  eddies,  the 
most  magnificent  image  of  silent  power  I  have  seen ;  and,  in  fact, 
one's  first  idea  of  a  world-river.  This  broad,  swift  sheet,  rolling 
strong  and  calm  in  silent  rage  for  three  or  four  hundred  miles,  is 
itself  far  the  grandest  thing  I  have  seen  here  or  shall  likely  see. 
But  enough  of  it.  Neuberg  and  I  got  out  at  Coblentz  that  Friday 
about  2  p.m.,  and,  by  N.'s  suggestion,  put  ourselves  in  the  coupe  of 
an  Ems  omnibus — Bad  Ems,  ten  miles  ofi",  up  a  side  valley,  east 
side,  there  to  try  for  a  quiet  sleeping-place  and  day  for  excerpting 
German  books  ;  which  really  answered  well.  Ems  is  the  strangest 
place  you  ever  saw — Matlock  ;  but  a  far  steeper  set  of  rocks  close 
to  rear ;  in  front  a  river  equal  to  Nith  ;  and  half  a  mile  of  the 
brightest  part  of  E.ue  de  Rivoli  (say  Regent's  Quadrapt)  set  into 
it ;  a  place  as  from  the  opera  direct,  and  inhabited  by  devil's 
sei-vants  chiefly.  Of  it  enough  in  winter  evenings  tliat  are  coming. 
We  got  the  quietest  lodging  perhaps  in  Germany  (not  very  quiet 
either),  at  the  farther  end  of  the  place ;  and  there,  in  spite  of 


Ujp  tlie  Rhine.  89 

cooks,  I  got  one  night's  sleep  and  two  half-ones,  and  did  all  my 
bits  of  books,  and  shall  not  undertake  any  similar  job  while  here. 
Better  buy  the  books  in  general  and  biing  them  home  to  read.  At 
Ems  we  saw  Russians  gambling  every  evening;  heard  music  by 
the  riverside  among  fantastic  promenades  and  Regent's  Quadrant 
edifices,  and  devil's-servant  peoi)le  eveiy  evening,  every  morning. 
Saw  a  dance,  too,  unforgetable  by  man ;  in  fine,  drove  in  cheap 
cuddy  vehicle  on  Sunday  evening  up  to  Nassau  (Burg  Nassau,  the 
birthplace  of  William  the  Silent  and  other  heroes).  A  kind  of 
pious  pilgrimage  which  I  am  glatl  to  have  done.  At  the  top  of 
the  high  tower,  on  a  high,  woo'dy  hill,  one  has  of  course  a  *  view  * 
not  worth  much  to  me.  But  I  entered  my  name  in  their  album, 
and  plucked  that  one  particle  of  flower  on  the  tip  top  of  all,  which 
I  now  send  to  thee.  Next  morning  we  left  Ems,  joined  our  steam- 
boat at  Coblentz,  and  away  again  to  the  sublime  portions  of  the 
Rhine  country  :  veiy  sublime  indeed,  really  worth  a  sight.  Say  a 
hundred  miles  of  a  Loch  Lomond,  or  half  Loch  Lomond,  all  rush- 
ing on  at  five'  miles  an  hour,  and  with  queer  old  towers  and  ruined 
castles  on  the  banks  ;  a  grand  silence,  too,  and  grey  day  adding  to 
one's  sadness  of  mood  ;  for  '  a  fine  sorrow, '  not  coarse,  is  the  ut- 
most I  can  bring  it  to  in  this  world  usually.  Beyond  Coblentz 
our  boat  was  too  crowded ;  nasty  people  several  of  them,  French 
mainly  ;  stupid  and  polite,  English  mainly.  There  was  a  sprink- 
ling of  Irish,  too,  *  looking  at  the  vine-clad  hills,'  as  I  heard  them 
lilting  and  saying. 

Neuberg  guided  and  guides,  and  does  for  me  as  only  a  third 
power  of  courier  reinforced  by  loyalty  and  friendship  could.  Bless 
him  !  the  good  and  sensible  but  wearisome  and  rather  heavy  man  ! 
At  Maintz  at  dusk  it  was  decidedly  pleasant  to  get  out  and  have 
done  with  the  Rhine,  which  had  now  gro'v^^l  quite  flat  on  either 
side,  and  full  of  islands  with  willows,  not  to  sj^eak  of  chained 
(anchored)  cornmills,  &c.  Maintz  and  Faust  of  Maintz  we  had  to 
Kui-vey  by  cat's-light — good  enough  for  us  and  it,  I  fancy.  In  fine, 
about  ten  the  railway,  twenty  miles  or  so,  brought  us  to  Frankfurt, 
and  the  wearied  human  tabernacle,  in  well-waxed  wainscoted 
upper  appartments  in  the  '  Dutch  Hof,*  prepared  itself  to  court 
repose  ;  not  with  the  best  prospects,  for  the  street  or  square  was 
still  rattlinj?  with  vehicles,  and  indeed  continued  to  do  so,  and  we 
left  it  rattling.  Of  the  night's  sleep  we  had  as  well  say  nothing. 
I  remembered  Goody  and  the  Malvern  inn  gate,  and  endeavoured 
to  possess  my  soul  in  patience.    In  shaving  next  morning,  with  my 


90  Carlijles  Life  in  London. 

face  to  the  Square,  which  was  very  lively,  and  had  trees  in  the 
middle,  I  caught,  with  the  corner  of  my  eye,  sight  of  a  face  which 
was  evidently  Goethe's.  Ach  Gott  !  merely  in  stone,  in  the  middle 
of  the  Platz  among  the  trees.  I  had  so  longed  to  see  that  face 
alive ;  and  here  it  was  given  to  me  at  last,  as  if  with  huge  world 
irony,  in  stone,  an  emblem  of  so  much  that  happens.  This  also 
gave  me  a  moment's  genial  sorrow,  or  something  of  that  sort. 

From   Bonn  I  had   written   to   Mephisto   M at   Weimar. 

Behold,  one  of  the  first  faces  the  morning  offered  me  at  Frankfurt 

was  that  of  M himself,  who  had  come  in  person  to  meet  us 

the  night  before,  and  had  been  at  the  Post  Office  and  all  inns,  the 
friendly  ugly  little  man  !  He  was  quite  desolate  to  hear  I  could 
not  stop  at  Weimar  or  any  place  beyond  one  day  for  want  of  sleep. 
He  went  about  with  us  everywhere,  and  at  first  threatened  to  be 
rather  a  burden  ;  but  by  degrees  grew  to  be  manageable  and 
rather  useful,  till  we  dined  together  and  parted  on  our  own  several 
routes.  He  is  gone  round  by  Wiirzburg,  &c.,  to  Weimar,  and  is 
to  expect  us  there  about  Saturday.  His  Grand  Duke 'and  Duchess 
are  in  Italy.  Eckermann  himself  is  at  Berlin — one  day  may  very 
well  suffice  in  Berlin. 

At  Frankfurt  yesterday  after  breakfast  we  saw — weariedly  I — all 
manner  of  things.  Goethe's  house — were  in  Goethe's  room,  a 
little  garret  not  much  bigger  than  my  dressing-room — and  wrote 
our  names  *  in  silence.'  The  Judengasse,  grimmest  section  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  their  pariahood  I  ever  saw.  The  Eomer 
where  old  Kaisers  were  all  elected.  On  the  whole  a  stirring, 
strange,  old  Teutonic  town,  all  bright  with  paint  and  busy  trade. 
The  fair  still  going  on  under  its  booths  of  small  trash  in  some 
squares.    Finally  we  mounted  to  the  top  of  the  Pfarrkirche  steeple 

— oldest  church,  highest  steeple— 318  steps,  and  then  M called 

for  and  got  a  bottle  of  beer,  being  giddy,  poor  soul !  and  we 
aided  in  drinking  the  same  (I  to  a  cigar)  and  composedly  survey- 
ing Frankfurt  city  and  the  interior  parts  of  Germany  as  far  as 
IDOssible.  At  5  p.m.  Neuberg  put  me  into  an  omnibus — vile 
crowded  airless  place — and  in  two  hours  brought  me  here  in  quest 
of  an  old  lodging  he  had  had,  *  the  quietest  in  the  world,'  where  we 
uere  lucky  enough  to  find  a  floor  unoccupied,  and  still  are,  for  at 
least  one  other  day.  As  I  said,  my  book-excerpting,  taliter  qualiter, 
is  as  good  as  done  ;  and  the  place  is  really  quite  rustic,  out  at  the 
very  end  of  Homburg,  and  that  by  narrow  lanes.  I  see  nothing 
here  but  fields,  and  hear  nothing  but  our  own  internal  noises. 


Ilomhxirg,  91 

Last  niglit  accordingly  I  expected  sleep.  Alas !  our  upper  floor 
lodgers  took  ill — Devil  mend  them ! — and  my  sleep  was  nothing 
to  crack  of.  In  fact  I  have  renounced  the  hope  of  getting  any 
considerable  sleep  in  Germany.  I  shall  snatch  nightly,  it  may 
be  hojjed,  a  few  hours,  half  a  jwrtion,  out  of  the  black  dog's 
throat ;  and  let  eveiy  disturbance  warn  me  more  and  more  to  bo 
sioift  in  my  motions,  to  restrict  myself  to  the  indispensable,  and 
to  hurry  hcmie^  there  to  sleep.  I  calculate  there  will  but  little 
good  come  to  me  from  this  journey.  Reading  of  books  I  find  to 
be  impossible.  The  thing  that  I  can  do  is  to  see  certain  places 
and  to  see  if  I  can  gather  certain  books.  Wise  people  also  to  talk 
with,  or  inquire  of,  I  as  good  as  despair  of  seeing.  All  Germans, 
one  becomes  convinced,  are  not  wise !  On  the  whole,  however, 
one  cannot  but  like  this  honest-hearted  hardy  pojjulation,  very 
coarse  of  feature  for  most  part,  yet  seldom  radically  lidsslich ;  a 
sonsie  look  rather :  and  very  frugal,  good-humouredly  poor  in 
their  way  of  life. 

Of  Homburg  proper — which  is  quite  out  of  sight  and  hearing, 
yet  within  five  minutes'  walk — N.  and  I  took  survey  last  night.  A 
public  set  of  rooms — Kursaal  they  call  such  things,  finer  than 
some  palaces,  all  supported  by  gambling,  all  built  by  one  French 
gambling  enfrepretieur,  and  such  a  set  of  damnable  faces — French, 
Italian,  and  Russian,  with  dull  English  in  quantities — as  were 
never  seen  out  of  Hell  before  !  Augh  !  It  is  enough  to  make  one 
turn  cannibal.  An  old  Russian  countess  yesternight  sat  playing 
Gowpavfuls  of  gold  pieces  every  stake,  a  figure  I  shall  never  forget 
in  this  world.     One  of  the  first  I  saw  risking  coin  at  an  outer 

table  was  Lord  almost  a  beauty  here,  to  whom  I  did  not 

speak.  Afterwards  in  music-room — also  the  gambling  eutrepre- 
neur'Sy  as  indeed  everything  here  is — the  poor  old  Duke  of  Au- 
gustenburg  hove  in  sight.  On  him  I  ought  to  call  if  I  can  find 
spirits.  Oh,  what  a  place  for  human  creatures  to  flock  to  !  Och ! 
Och  !  The  taste  of  the  waters  is  nasty.  Seltzer,  but  stronger— as 
Ems  is  too,  only  hot.  On  the  whole,  if  this  is  the  last  of  German 
Badeoi'tei- 1  ever  see,  I  shall  console  myself. 

The  next  letter  is  to  his  mother  dated  from  "Weimar, 
September  19.  She,  lie  well  knew,  if  slie  cared  for  noth- 
ing else,  would  care  to  hear  about  the  Luther  localities. 
She  had  a  picture  of  Luther  in  her  room  at  Scotsbrig.  He 
was  her  chief  Saint  in  the  Christian  calendar.     After  de- 


92  Cm^hjle'S  Life  in  London. 

scribing  briefly  the  early  part  of  his  jonrney  as  far  as 
llomburg,  which  he  calls  the  *  rallying-place  of  such  a  set 
of  empty  blackguards  as  are  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in 
the  world,'  he  tells  how  on  his  way  to  Cassel  he  stopped 
at  Marburg,  'a  strange,  most  ancient  tow^n,  famed  for 
some  of  Luther's  operations  and  for  being  the  Landgraf 
Philip  of  Hesse's  place  of  residence.'     He  continues  : — 

The  Landgraf  s  high  old  castle,  where  we  loitered  a  couple  of 
hours,  is  now  a  correction-house  filled  with  criminals  and  soldiers. 
The  chamber  of  conference  between  Luther,  Zwingli,  &c.,  is  used 
for  keeping  hay.  The  next  morning  brought  us  from  Cassel  to 
Eisenach,  with  its  Wartburg,  where  Luther  lay  concealed  translat- 
ing the  Bible ;  and  there  I  spent  one  of  the  most  interesting  fore- 
noons I  ever  got  by  travelling.  Eisenach  is  about  as  big  as  Dum- 
fries, a  very  old  town  but  well  whitewashed,  all  built  of  brick  and 
oak  with  red  tile  roofs  of  amazing  steej)ness  and  several  grim  old 
swagbellied  steeples  and  churches  and  palatial  residences  rising 
conspicuous  over  them.  It  stands  on  a  perfect  plane  by  the  side 
of  a  little  river,  plain  smaller  than  Langholm  and  surrounded  by 
hills  which  are  not  so  high,  yet  of  a  somewhat  similar  character, 
and  are  all  grassy  and  many  of  them  thickly  wooded.  Directly  on 
the  south  side  of  it  there  rises  one  hill,  somewhat  as  Lockerbie 
hill  is  in  height  and  position,  but  clothed  with  trim  rich  woods ; 
all  the  way  through  which  wind  paths  with  prospect  houses,  &c. 
On  the  top  of  the  hill  stands  the  old  Wartburg,  which  it  takes  you 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  to  reach  ;  an  old  castle — Watch  Castle 
is  the  name  of  it — near  800  years  old,  whei'e  there  is  still  a  kind  of 
garrison  kept,  perhaps  twenty  men  ;  though  it  does  not  much  look 
like  a  fortress  ;  what  one  sees  from  below  being  mainly  two  mon- 
strous old  houses,  so  to  speak,  with  enormous  roofs  to  them,  com- 
23arable  to  two  gigantic  peak  stacks  set  somewhat  apart.  There 
are  other  lower  buildings  that  Connect  these  when  one  gets  up. 
There  is  also  of  course  a  wall  all  round — a  donjon  tower,  standing 
like  Repentance  ' — and  the  Duke  of  Weimar,  to  whom  the  place 
belongs,  is  engaged  in  restorations,  &c. ,  and  has  many  masons  em- 
ployed on  it  just  now.  I  heeded  little  of  all  they  had  to  show, 
except  Junker  Georg's  "^  chamber,  which  is  in  the  nearest  of  the 

1  The  Tower  of  Repentance  on  Hoddam  Hill.  Carlyle  illustrates  through- 
out from  localities  near  Ecclefechan  which  his  mother  would  know. 

2  The  name  under  which  Lather  passed  when  concealed  there. 


The  Castle  at  Wartbu?^.  93 

peat  stacks,  the  one  nearest  Eisenach  and  close  by  the  gate  when 
yon  enter  on  yonr  right  hand.  A  short  stair  of  old  worn  stone 
conducts  yon  up.  They  open  a  door,  you  ent«r  a  little  apartment, 
less  than  your  best  room  at  Scotsbiig,  I  almost  think  less  than 
yonr  smallest,  a  very  poor  low  room  with  an  old  leaded  lattice 
window ;  to  me  the  most  veueiable  of  all  rooms  I  ever  entered. 
Luther's  old  oak  table  is  there,  about  three  feet  square,  and  a 
huge  fossil  bone — vertebra  of  a  mammoth — which  served  him  for 
footstool.  Nothing  else  now  in  the  room  did  certainly  belong  to 
him  ;  but  these  did.  I  kissed  his  old  oak  table,  looked  out  of  his 
window — making  them  open  it  for  me — down  the  sheer  castle  wall 
into  deep  chasms,  over  the  great  ranges  of  silent  woody  mountains, 
and  thought  to  myselfj  *  Here  once  lived  for  a  time  one  of  God's 
soldiers.  Be  honour  given  him  ! '  Luther's  father  and  mother, 
painted  by  Cranach,  are  here — excellent  old  portraits — the  father's 
with  a  dash  of  thrift,  contention,  and  worldly  wisdom  in  his  old 
judicious,  peasant  countenance,  the  mother  particularly  pious, 
kind,  tiTie,  and  motherly — a  noble  old  peasant  woman.  There  is 
also  Luther's  self  by  the  same  Cranach  ;  a  ijicture  infinitely  supe- 
rior to  what  your  lithograph  would  give  a  notion  of ;  a  bold 
effectual-looking  mstic  man,  with  brown  eyes  and  skin ;  with  a 
dash  of  peaceable  self-confidence  and  healthy  defiance  in  the  look 
of  him.  In  fact  one  is  called  to  forget  the  engraving  in  looking 
at  this  ;  and  indeed  I  have  since  found  the  engraving  is  not  from 
this,  but  from  another  Cranach,  to  which  also  it  has  no  tolerable 
resemblance.  But  I  must  say  no  more  of  the  Wartburg.  We  saw 
the  place  on  the  plaster  where  he  threw  his  inkstand — the  plaster 
is  all  cut  out  and  carried  off  by  visitors — saw  the  outer  staircase 
which  is  close  by  the  door  where  he  speaks  of  often  hearing  the 
Devil  make  noises.  Poor  and  noble  Luther  !  I  shall  never  forget 
this  Wartburg,  and  am  right  glad  I  saw  it. 

That  afternoon,  there  being  no  train  convenient,  we  drove  to 
Gotha  in  a  kind  of  clatch — two-horsed— veiy  cheap  in  these  parts ; 
a  bright  beautiful  country  and  a  bonny  little  town  ;  belongs  to 
Prince  Albert's  brother,  more  power  to  his  elbow !  There  we  lotlged 
in  sumptuous  rooms  in  an  old  quiet  inn  ;  the  very  rooms  where 
Napoleon  lodged  after  being  beaten  at  Leipzig.  It  seems  I  slept 
last  night  where  he  breakfasted,  if  that  would  do  much  for  me.  At 
noon  we  came  off  to  Erfurt,  a  place  of  30,000  inhabitants,  and  now 
a  Prussian  fortified  town,  all  intersected  with  ditches  of  water  for 
defence*  sake.     Streets  very  crooked,  very  narrow,  houses  with  old 


94  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

overhanging  walls,  and  still  the  very  room  in  it  where  Martin 
Luther  lived  when  a  monk,  and,  one  guide-book  said,  the  very 
Bible  he  found  in  the  Convent  library  and  read  in  this  cell.  This 
of  the  Bible  proved  wrong.  Luther's  particular  Bible  is  not  here, 
but  is  said  to  be  at  Berlin.  Nothing  really  of  Luther's  there  ex- 
cept the  poor  old  latticed  window  glazed  in  lead,  the  main  panes 
round,  and  about  the  size  of  a  biggish  snap,  all  bound  together  by 
whirligig  intervals.  It  looks  out  to  the  west,  over  mere  old 
cloistered  courts  and  roof-tops  against  a  church  steeple,  and  is  it- 
self in  the  second  storey.  Except  this  and  Luther's  old  inkstand, 
a  poor  old  oaken  hoxie  with  inkbottle  and  sand-case  in  it  now 
hardly  sticking  together,  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen  here  that 
actually  belonged  to  Luther.  The  walls  are  all  covered  over  with 
texts,  &c.,  in  painted  letters  by  a  later  hand.  The  ceiling  also  is 
ornamentally  painted  ;  and  indeed  the  place  is  all  altered  now,  and 
turned  long  ago  into  an  orphan  asylum,  much  of  the  old  building 
gone  and  replaced  by  a  new  of  a  different  figure.  On  one  wall  of 
the  room,  however,  is  again  a  i:)ortrait  of  Luther  by  Cranach,  and 
this  I  found  on  inspection  was  the  one  your  engravers  had  been 
vainly  aiming  at.  Vainly,  for  this  too  is  a  noble  face  ;  the  eyes 
not  turned  up  in  hypocritical  devotion,  but  looking  out  in  profound 
sorrow  and  determination,  the  lips  too  gathered  in  stern  but  affec- 
tionate firmness.  He  is  in  russet  yellow  boots,  and  the  collar  of 
his  shirt  is  small  and  edged  with  black. 

So  far  about  Luther.     Though  writing  from  Weimar, 
lie  was  less  minute  in  his  account  of  the  relics  of  Goethe. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Weimar  :  September  20,  1852. 
Last  night  I  sat  long,  till  everything  was  quiet,  in  this  Gasthof 
zum  Erbprinz,  writing  to  my  mother  all  about  Luther's  localities. 
Those  of  to-day  belong  especially  to  you.  I  write  within  half  a 
gun-shot  of  the  Goethe'sche  Hans  and  of  the  Schiller'sche.  Our 
own  early  days  are  intertwined  in  a  kind  of  pathetic  manner  with 
these  two.  At  Homburg  we  had  a  quieter  time  than  could  have 
been  expected — we  stayed  out  our  two  days  and  three  nights  un- 
der tolerable  circumstances.  I  finished  my  books  and  saw  the 
Schloss,  where  are  many  interesting  portraits,  and  a  whole  lot  of 
books  about  Frederick,  to  the  whole  of  which  I  might  have  had 
access  without  difficulty  had  it  been  my  cue  to  stay,  which  it  was 
not.     I  also  saw  the  Augustenburgs,  and  spent  an  interesting  hour 


Weimar.  95 

with  the  good  Duchess  and  her  two  sons  and  two  daughters  ;  in  a 
very-  Babylonish  condition  as  to  languages,  but  otherwise  quite 
pleasant  and  luminous.  The  old  gentleman  sat  mostly  silent,  but 
looking  genial ;  the  Duchess,  whose  French  seemed  bad,  and 
whose  German  was  not  clear  to  me,  is  a  fine  broad  motherly  woman. 
The  girls,  with  theii-  stiff  English,  were  beautiful,  clear-eyed,  faii- 
skinned  creatures,  and  happy  in  spite  of  their  exile ;  the  sons 
ditto  ditto.  It  was  here  that  I  fii-st  heard  of  "Wellington's  death, 
the  night  before  we  came  away.  Cassel  is  a  large,  dull  town,  and 
there,  in  the  best  inn,  was  such  an  arrangement  for  sleeping  as — 
Ach  Himmel !  I  sliall  not  forget  those  cow-homs  and  *  Horet  ihr 
Herren '  in  a  hurry.  It  was  a  night  productive  of  *  pangs  which 
were  rather  exquisite,'  and  nevertheless,  some  three  hours  of  sleep 
on  which  one  could  proceed  and  say,  '  It  will  not  come  back.'  I 
had  also  the  pleasure  to  see  that  Hassenpflug's — the  tyrannous, 
tmitorous  court  minion's — windows  were  broken  as  we  drove  past 
in  the  morning  towards  Eisenach,  where  again  we  halt  for  Luther's 
and  the  Wartburg's  sake.  Of  all  that  you  shall  hear  enough  by- 
and-by — it  was  a  real  gain  to  me.  I  could  not  without  worship 
look  out  of  Luther's  indubitable  window,  down  into  the  sheer 
abysses  over  the  castle  wall,  and  far  and  wide  out  upon  the  woody 
multitude  of  hills  ;  and  reflect  that  here  was  authentically  a  kind 
of  gi-eat  man  and  a  kind  of  holy  place,  if  there  were  any  such.  In 
my  tom-up,  sick,  exasperated  humour  I  could  have  cried,  but 
didn't.  ...  Weimar — a  little,  bright  enough  place,  smaller  than 
Dumfries,  with  three  steeples  and  totally  without  smoke — stands 
amid  dull,  undulating  country  ;  flat  mostly,  and  tending  towards 
ugliness,  except  for  trees.  We  were  glad  to  get  to  the  inn,  by  the 
worst  and  slowest  of  clatches,  and  there  procure  some  chack  of  din- 
ner. Poor  M had  engaged  me  the  '  quietest  rooms  in  Ger- 
many,' ricketty,  bare,  crazy  rooms,  and  with  a  noisy  man  snoring 
on  the  other  side  of  the  deal  partition — yet  really  quiet  in  compar- 
ison, where  I  did  sleep  last  night  and  hope  to  do  this.     M 

tmly  has  been  unwearied,  would  take  me  into  Heaven  if  it  de- 
pended on  him.  Good  soul !  I  really  am  a  little  grateful,  hai-d 
as  my  heart  is ;  and  ought  to  be  ashamed  that  I  am  not  more. 
Neuberg  too — veritably  he  is  better  than  six  couriers,  and  ia  a 
fiiend  over  and  above.     People  are  very  good  to  me. 

Goethe's  house,  which  was  opened  by  favour,  kept  us  occupied 
in  a  strange  mood  for  two  houra  or  more.  Schiller's  for  one  ditto. 
Everybody  knows  the  Goethe'sche  Haus  ;   and  poor  Schiller  and 


96  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Goethe  here  are  dandled  about  and  multiplied  in  miserable  little 
bustkins  and  other  dilettantisms,  till  one  is  sick  and  sad.  G.'s 
house  is  quite  like  the  picture,  but  one-third  smaller  ;  on  the  whole 
his  effective  lodging  I  found  was  small,  low-roofed,  and  almost 
mean,  to  what  I  had  conceived ;  hardly  equal — nay,  not  at  all 
equal,  had  my  little  architect  once  done  her  work — to  my  own  at 
Chelsea.  On  the  book-shelves  I  found  the  last  book  I  ever  sent 
Goethe — Taylor's  '  Survey  of  German  Poetry ' ;  and  a  crumb  of 
paper  torn  from  some  scroll  of  my  own  (Johnson,  as  I  conjectured), 
still  sticking  in,  after  twenty  years.  Schiller's  house  was  still 
more  affecting ;  the  room  where  he  wrote,  his  old  table,  exactly 
like  the  model,  the  bed  where  he  died,  and  a  portrait  of  his  dead 
face  in  it.  A  poor  man's  house,  and  a  brave,  who  had  fallen  at  his 
post  there.     Elieu  !  Eheu  !  what  a  world  !     I  have  since  dined  at 

M 's  with  two  Weimarese  moderns.     One  of  them  is  librarian 

here,  of  whom  I  shall  get  some  use.  But,  oh  Heavens  !  would 
that  I  were  at  home  again.  Want  of  sleep  and  '  raal  mental 
awgony  i'  my  ain  inside,'  do  hold  me  in  such  pickle  always.  Quiclf, 
quick,  and  let  us  get  it  done  ! 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Nieder  Rathen,  near  Dresden  : 
September  25,  1852. 

I  wrote  to  you  from  Weimar  some  five  days  ago,  and  therefore 
there  is  nothing  pressing  me  at  present  to  write  ;  but,  having  a 
quiet  hour  here  by  the  side  of  the  Elbe  river,  at  the  foot  of  wild 
rock  mountains  in  the  queerest  region  you  ever  saw,  I  throw  you 
another  word,  not  knowing  when  I  may  have  another  chance  as 
good.  I  am  on  the  second  floor  in  a  little  German  country  inn 
literally  washed  by  the  Elbe,  which  is  lying  in  the  moonshine  as 
clear  as  a  mirror  and  as  silent.  Right  above  us  is  a  high  peak 
called  the  Bastei,  a  kind  of  thing  you  are  obliged  to  do.  This 
we  have  done,  and  are  to  go  to-morrow  towards  Frederick's  first 
battle-field  in  the  Seven  Years'  War  ;  after  which,  the  second  day, 
if  all  go  well,  will  bring  us  into  Berlin.  We  came  by  an  Elbe 
steamer,  go  on  to-morrow  by  another  steamer,  then  by  railway  ;  and 
hope  to  see,  though,  alas !  in  quite  confused  circumstances  and  to 
little  advantage,  some  of  the  actual  footsteps  of  Father  Fritz  ;  for 
here  too,  amid  these  rocks,  as  well  as  farther  on  at  Lobositz,  he 
did  feats.  But  let  me  tell  in  order,  and  take  up  my  story  where  I 
left  it. 


Wtinuir.  \u 

The  (lay  after  I  wrote  we  were  to  leave  Weimar  ;  but  lo,  in  the 

morning  while  we  sat  at  breakfast,  little  M came  in,  looking 

highly  animated,  with  letters  from  the  Schloss,  from  the  *  Grand 
Duchess,'  from  the,  &c.  In  short,  the  said  Grand  Ihichess — 
sister  of  the  Czar  Nicholas,  and  mother  of  the  Duke,  who  was  at 
Chelsea — had  seen  in  the  newsimpers  that  one  'Carlyle'  was  anion*^ 
the  arrivals.  Could  this  be  the  bei-uhmte,  &c.,  in  which  case  natu- 
rally he  and  his  companion  must  coine  to  dinner;  and  of  course 
there  could  be  no  travelling  that  day.  Well,  we  did  go  to  dinner, 
saw  how  they  ackit ;  a  rather  troublesome  dramatic  affair,  of  which 
you  shall  have  full  description  when  I  retura.  Enough,  it  was 
very  sublime,  and  altogether  heartless,  and  even  dull  and  dreary ; 
but  well  worth  doing  for  once.  The  Grand  Duchess  is  towards 
sixty,  slightly  deaf,  and  has  once  been  extremely  pretty,  though 
hard  always  as  nails  or  diamonds.  Her  husband,  a  kind  of  imbe- 
cile man  they  say,  looJcs  extremely  like  a  gentleman,  and  has  an 
air  of  solemn  serene  vacuity,  which  is  itself  almost  royal.  I  had 
to  sit  by  the  Duchess  at  dinner — three  p.m.  to  five — and  maintain 
with  energy  a  singularly  empty  intellectual  colloquy,  in  French 
chiefly,  in  English  and  in  German.  The  lady  being  lialf-doaf  withal, 
you  may  think  how  charming  it  was.  She  has  a  thin  croaky  voice ; 
brow  and  chin  recede  ;  eyes  are  blue,  small,  and  of  the  brightness 
and  hardness  of  precious  stones,  Ach  Goit  !  At  last  we  got  away, 
soon  after  five,  and  I  for  one  was  right  chai'med  to  think  here  is 
one  thing  done.  But  it  must  be  owned  the  honour  done  me  was 
to  be  recognised  ;  and  I  was  very  glad  to  oblige  poor  Neuberg  too 
by  a  touch  of  Court  life  which  he  would  not  othersv'ise  have  seen. 

At  Leipzig  all  was  raging  business,  the  fair  being  in  hand  ;- 
noisy  and  busy  almost  as  Cheapside,  London.  Lots  of  dim  haber- 
dashery, leather  without  end,  and  all  things  rolling  about  in  noisy 
waggons  with  miniature  wheels.  To  get  any  sleep  at  all  was  a 
kind  of  miracle.  However,  we  did  tolerably  well,  got  even  a  book 
or  two  of  the  list  I  had  formed,  drank  a  glass  of  wine— one  only 
in  Auerbachs  Keller — and  at  last  got  safe  to  Dresden,  eighty  miles 
off,  which  was  a  mighty  deliverance,  as  from  the  tumult  of  Cheap- 
side  into  the  solitude  of  Bath,  or  the  New  Town  of  Edinburgh— a 
very  interesting  old  capital  where,  if  sleep  had  been  attainable,  I 
could  have  stayed  a  week  with  advantage.  But,  alas !  it  was  not  ; 
so  I  had  to  plimge  along  and  save,  as  from  a  conflagration,  what 
little  I  could  of  my  iwssibilities ;  and  at  length,  with  gratitude  to 
Heaven,  to  get  away  into  the  steamer  this  afternoon  and  bid  adieu 

Vol.  IV.— 7 


98  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

to  Dresden  and  its  Japan  and  other  palaces.  .  .  .  For  Berlin, 
if  it  be  not  all  the  noisier^  I  design  at  least  a  week  ;  in  ten  days 
hence  I  may  be  far  on  my  way  homeward  again.  ...  A  tap- 
room with  some  twenty  rustic  gents  (they  did  not  go  till  after 
midnight,  the  scamps)  enjoying  cards,  beer,  and  bad  cigars  for  the 
last  hour  or  two,  seems  to  have  winded  itself  up,  and  things  are 
growing  stone  quiet  in  this  establishment.  I  must  now  address 
myself  to  the  task  of  falling  asleep.  We  go  to-morrow  at  nine. 
Lobositz  (in  Bohemia),  Zittau  (Lusatia),  Frankfurt  am  Oder — Ber- 
lin— that  is  the  projected  route,  but  liable  to  revisal. 

Mrs.'Carlyle  was  still  in  Chelsea  with  her  workmen  all 
this  time.  It  had  been  a  trying  summer  to  her.  But  slxe 
had  the  comfort  of  knowing  that  her  husband  was  achiev- 
ing the  part  of  the  business  which  had  fallen  to  his  share, 
better  than  might  have  been  looked  for.  She  writes  to 
her  brother-in-law,  John: — 

Mr.  0.  seems  to  be  getting  very  successfully  through  his  travels, 
thanks  to  the  patience  and  helpfulness  of  Neuberg.  He  makes  in 
ev^ery  letter  frightful  miserei-es  over  his  sleeping  accommodations ; 
but  he  cannot  conceal  that  he  is  really  pretty  well,  and  gets  sleep 
enough  to  go  on  with,  more  or  less  pleasantly.  I  wonder  what  he 
would  have  made  of  my  sleeping  accommodations  during  the  last 
three  months. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Bad  Toplitz,  September  27. 
No  opportunity  of  posting  the  above ;  so  I  tear  it  open  again 
and  add  a  few  words.  We  have  had  a  sore  pilgrimage  these  last 
two  days  since  I  ended  the  other  page  ;  a  small  space  to  go  over, 
but  by  confused  Bohemian  conveyances  amid  the  half-savage  Bo- 
hemian populations,  with  their  fleas,  their  dirt,  and  above  all  their 
noises.  However,  we  have  partly  managed  the  thing,  and  are  got 
into  beautiful  quarters  again ;  a  romantic  mountain  watering- 
place,  with  the  sun  still  bright  upon  it ;  and  everybody  of  Bath 
kind  gone  away.  Here  or  nowhere  I  ought  to  find  some  sleep,  and 
then  Berlin  is  full  before  us,  and  after  Berlin,  home,  home  !  We 
have  actually  seen  Lobositz,  the  first  battle-field  of  Fritz  in  the 
Seven  Years'  War ;  and  walked  over  it  all  this  morning  before 
breakfast,  under  the  guidance  of  a  Christian  native,  checked  by  my 
best  memory  of  reading  and  maps,  and  found  it  do  tolerably  well. 


Berlin,  99 

In  fact,  oh  Goody  dear,  I  have  seen  many  cnrions  and  pleasant 
things,  I  ought  to  say— and  inll  say  at  great  length  when  we  are 
by  our  own  fireside  together  again.  Neuberg  is  strong ;  one  of 
the  fiiendhest,  handiest,  most  patient  of  men. 

BerUn,  October  1,  1853. 
[British  Hotel,  Unter  den  Linden.] 

Here  yon  see  we  are  at  the  summit  of  these  wanderings,  from 
which  I  hope  there  is  for  me  a  swift  perpendicular  return  before 
long ;  not  a  slow  parabolic  one  as  the  ascent  has  been.  We  came 
twenty-four  hours  ago,  latish  last  night,  from  Frankfurt-on-the- 
Oder,  from  the  field  of  Knnersdorf  (a  dreadful  scraggy  village 
where  Fritz  received  his  worst  defeat),  and  various  toils  and  strap- 
azen ;  veiy  weary,  in  a  damp  kind  of  night,  and  took  shelter  in  the 
readiest  inn,  from  which  we  have  just  removed  to  this  better,  at 
least  far  grander,  one  ;  where  perhaps  there  are  beds  one  can  sleep 
in,  and  the  butter  is  not  bitter.  Alas !  such  sorrows  attend  the 
wayfarer,  and  his  first  refuge  is  to  sit  down  and  write,  if  haply  he 
have  anyone  to  whom  his  writing  will  give  a  feeling  of  pity  for 
him.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  do  wish  these  sleepless,  joyless,  sad  and  weaiy 
wanderings  were  at  an  end,  as  by  Heaven's  help  they  now  soon 
shall  be.  And  you  too,  poor  little  weaiy  soul !  You  are  quite 
worn  out  with  that  accursed  *  thorough  repair.*  "Would  to  Heaven 
we  had  never  thought  of  it ;  but  lived  in  the  old  black  house  we 
had,  where  at  least  was  no  noise  of  carpenters  to  drive  one  mad,  no 
stink  of  paint  to  poison  one.  Driven  out  of  the  house  again,  and 
sleeping  solitary  in  a  little  lodging  !     I  declare  it  makes  me  quite 

sad  to  think  of  it ;  and ,  if is  the  fundamental  cause  of  it, 

deserves  to  be,  as  you  pray,  *  particularly  damned.'  Confound 
him,  and  confound  the  whole  confused  business,  this  abominable, 
sorrowful,  and  shockingly  expensive  tour  to  Germany  included. 
But  no.  Rather  let  us  have  patience.  Nevertheless,  I  do  grieve 
for  thee.     But  let  me  narrate  as  usuiU,  only  with  greater  brevity. 

From  Lobositz  to  Toplitz  the  last  letters  brought  you,  letters 
written  in  the  so-called  Saxon  Switzerland,  amid  the  Bohemian 
mountains.  ...  No  English,  scarcely  any  ci^^lized  traveller 
seems  to  have  accomplished  the  thirty  or  forty  English  miles 
which  lie  between  Lobositz  and  Zittau.  We  had  a  strange  and 
strangest  day  of  it  in  slow  German  Stellwagens  ;  and  in  fact  were 
horribly  tired  before  the  thing  in  general  ended  by  a  seat  in  the 
soft-going,  swift,  and  certain  railway-carriage,  and  the  inn  at 
Herrnhuty  where  we  had  to  wait  foui*  hours  of  the  stillest  life  you 


100  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

ever  saw  or  dreamt  of.  Herrnhut  (Lord's  keeping)  is  the  primi- 
tive and  still  central  city  of  the  Moravian  brethren  ;  a  place  not 
bigger  than  Annan,  but  beautiful,  pure,  and  quiet  beyond  any 
town  on  the  earth  I  dare  say ;  and  indeed  more  like  a  saintly 
dream  of  Ideal  Calvinism  made  real  than  a  town  of  stone  and 
lime,  where  London  porter,  not  needed  by  me,  is  to  be  had  for 
money.  I  will  tell  you  about  Herrnhut  too  some  day,  for  it  is 
among  the  notable  spots  of  the  world,  and  I  retain  a  lively  mem- 
ory of  it.  But  not  of  it,  nor  of  dreary  moory  Frankfurt  and  its 
Kunersdorf  villages  and  polite  lieutenants — for  a  Prussian  lieu- 
tenant-adjutant knew  me  there  by  fame,  and  was  very  polite  with- 
out knowing  me— not  of  this,  nor  of  any  other  phenomenon  will 
I  now  speak.  In  fact  I  am  dead  stupid  ;  my  heart  nearly  choked 
out  of  me,  and  my  head  churned  to  pieces.  .  .  .  Berlin  is 
loud  almost  as  London,  but  in  no  other  way  great  or  among  the 
greatest.  I  should  guess  it  about  the  size  of  Liverpool ;  and  more 
like  Glasgow  in  the  straight  openness  of  its  streets.  Many  grand 
public  edifices  about  this  eastern  end  of  the  town  ;  but  on  the 
whole  it  looks  in  many  quarters  almost  shabby,  in  spite  of  its  noise 
and  paint ;  so  low  are  the  houses  for  a  capital  city ;  more  like 
warehouses  or  maltkins,  with  the  veiy  chimneys  wanting,  for 
within  is  nothing  but  stoves.  This  '  Unter  den  Linden  '  is  the  one 
good  street  of  the  place,  as  if  another  Princes  Street  at  300  yards' 
distance,  and  with  tree  rows  between  them,  ran  parallel  to  the 
Princes  Street  we  know.  It  is  on  the  north  side  of  this  we  live, 
grand  rooms  indeed,  and  not  dearer  than  an  Edinburgh  lodging, 
or  nearly  so  dear  as  a  London  one — two  guineas  a  week,  one 
guinea  each. 

October  3,  4  p.m. 
The  night  yielded  me  a  handsome  modicum  of  sleep,  handsome 
for  these  parts,  and  the  lodging  promises  every  way  to  be  good. 
Certainly  the  most  like  a  human  bed-room  of  any  I  have  yet  had 
in  this  country.  After  breakfast  I  went  to  the  library,  introduced 
myself,  got  catalogue  of  Frederick  books,  A  dreary  wilderness, 
mountains  of  chaff  to  one  grain  of  corn  ;  caught  headache  in  the 
bad  air  within  about  an  hour,  and  set  off  to  the  British  Ambassa- 
dor's, who  can  procure  me  liberty  to  take  books  home.  Well  re- 
ceived by  the  British  Ambassador  so  soon  as  he  had  read  Lady 
A.'s  letter.  His  wife  too  came  in  and  was  very  kind.  All  right. 
Have  been  in  the  Museum  Picture  Gallery  since.  Endless  Christs 
and  Marys,  Venus's  and  Amors — at  length  an  excellent  portrait  of 
Fritz. 


Jounxey  Ended.  101 

Octobers. 
We  leave  Berlin  to-morrow,  Saturday  the  9th.  Go  by  Bruns- 
wick, by  Hanover,  CJologne,  and  from  thence  on  Tuesday  evening 
at  Ostend  I  find  a  steamer  direct  for  London.  ...  I  have  had 
a  terrible  tumbling  week  in  Berlin.  Oh,  what  a  month  in  general 
I  have  had ;  month  of  the  profoundest,  ghastliest  solitude  in  the 
middle  of  incessant  talk  and  locomotion.  But  here  after  all  I 
have  got  my  things  not  so  intolerably  done,  and  have  accomplished 
what  was  reasonably  possible.  Perhaps  it  will  not  look  so  ugly 
when  once  I  am  far  away  from  it.  In  help  from  other  people 
there  has  been  redundancy  rather  than  defect.  One  or  two — es- 
pecially a  certain  Herr  Professor  Magnus,  the  chief  portrait  painter 
here — have  been  quite  mai*vellous  with  their  civility  ;  and  on  the 
whole  it  was  usually  rather  a  relief  to  me  to  get  an  hour,  as  now, 
to  oneself,  ^nd  be  left  to  private  exertions  and  reflections  mainly. 
Yesterday  I  saw  old  Tieck,  beautiful  old  man  ;  so  serene,  so  calm, 
so  sad.  I  have  also  seen  Cornelius,  Ranch,  &c.,  including  Preuss, 
the  historian  of  Frederick,  all  men  in  short  for  whom  I  had  any 
use.  Nay,  they  had  me  in  their  newspapers  it  would  appear,  and 
would  gladly  make  a  lion  of  me  if  I  liked.  A  lion  that  can  only 
get  half  sleep  is  not  the  lion  that  can  shine  in  that  ti*ade,  so  we 
declined.  The  Ambassador  has  also  been  very  good  to  me,  got 
me  into  the  library  with  liberty  to  take  books  home,  invited  me 
to  dinner.  But  Magnus  had  engaged  me  before,  and  I  could  only 
make  it  tea.  No  matter  for  that,  for  they  were  all  English  com- 
mon-places where  I  went.  You  will  see  me  on  Wednesday,  but 
not  till  noon  or  later. 

So  was  this  terrible  journey  got  done  with,  which  to 
anyone  but  Carlyle  would  have  been  a  mere  pleasure  trip ; 
to  him  terrible  in  prospect,  terrible  in  the  execution,  terri- 
ble in  the  retrospect.  ,  His  wife  said  he  could  not  conceal 
that  he  was  pretty  well,  and  liad  nothing  really  to  com- 
plain of.  Here  is  what  he  himself  said  about  it  when 
looking  back  with  deliberate  seriousness  : — 

After  infinite  struggles  I  had  roused  myself  to  go.  The  jmrting 
with  my  poor  old  mother,  the  crowning  point  of  those  unbeai-able 
days,  was  painful  beyond  endurance  almost ;  and  yet  my  heart  in 
the  inside  of  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  made  of  stone,  as  if  it  would 
not  wcei)  any  more  except  perhaps  blood.    One  pays  dear  for  any 


102  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

'  intellect '  one  may  have.  It  means  primarily  '  sensibility,'  wliicli 
again  means  injury,  pain,  misery  from  unconscious  nature,  or  con- 
scious or  unconscious  man  ;  in  fact,  a  heavy  burden  painful  to  bear, 
however  piously  you  take  it. 

After  recapitulating  the  places  which  he  had  seen,  and 
the  persons  whom  he  had  met,  he  goes  on  : — 

All  this,  which  is  etched  into  me  painfully  as  with  burning 
acids,  I  once  thought  of  writing  down  in  detail,  but  have  not 
done,  probably  shall  not  do.  It  was  a  journey  done  as  in  some 
shirt  of  Nessus  ;  misery  and  dyspeptic  degradation,  inflammation, 
and  insomnia  tracking  every  step  of  me.  Not  till  all  these  vile 
fire  showers,  fallen  into  viler  ashes  now,  have  once  been  winnowed 
quite  away,  shall  I  see  what  'additions  to  my  spiritual  picture 
gallery,'  or  other  conquests  from  the  business  I  have  actually 
brought  back  with  me.  Neuberg,  I  ought  to  record  here  and 
eveiywhero,  was  the  kindest,  best-tempered,  most  assiduous  of 
friends  and  helpers,  '  worth  ten  couriers  to  me,'  as  I  often  defined 
him. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

A.D.  1852-3.    ^T.  57-58. 

The  Grange — Cheyne  Row — ^The  Cock  torment — Reflections — An 
improved  house — Funeral  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington — Begin- 
nings of  *  Frederick  ' — The  Grange  again — An  incident — Pub- 
lic opinion — Mother's  illness — The  demon  fowls — Last  letter 
to  his  mother — Her  death — James  Carlyle. 

The  painters  had  not  completed  their  work,  and  the  smell 
was  insupportable  when  Carlvle  got  home  in  the  middle 
of  October.  lie  was  in  no  condition  to  face  any  more 
annoyances,  and  he  and  his  wife  took  refuge  for  three 
weeks  at  the  Grange  with  the  ever-hospitable  Ashburtons. 
There,  too,  the  snlphui-ons  mood  was  still  predominant,  and 
things  did  not  go  well  with  him.  It  was  not  till  Novem- 
ber that  he  was  fairly  re-established  in  his  own  quarters, 
and  in  a  condition  to  so  much  as  think  of  seriously  begin- 
ning his  work.  A  preliminary  skirmish  became  necessary, 
to  put  to  silence  his  neighbour's  cocks.  Mr.  Remington, 
who  then  lived  near  him,  and  was  the  owner  of  the  offend- 
ers, has  kindly  sent  me  the  correspondence  which  passed 
on  the  occasion  ;  very  gracious  and  humble  on  Carlyle's 
part,  requesting  only  that  the  cocks  in  question  should  l>e 
made  inaudible  from  midnight  till  breakfast  time;  Mr. 
llemington,  though  they  were  favourites  which  he  Jiad 
brout'lit  from  Northumberland,  instantlv  conscntinj;  to 
suppress  them  altogether.  This  accomplished,  (^arlyle  pro- 
ceeded as  it  were  to  clear  the  stage  by  recovering  his  own 
mental  condition,  and  took  himself  severely  to  task  for 
what  he  found  amiss.     Much  that  he  says  will  seem  ex- 


104  Carlyle's  L^fe  ^Vl  London. 

aggerated,  but  it  will  be  remembered  that  he  was  not 
speaking  to  the  world  but  to  himself.  It  is  idle  to  judge 
him  by  common  rules.  His  nerves  were  abnormally  sen- 
sitive. He  lived  habitually,  unless  he  violently  struggled 
against  it,  in  what  he  had  described  as  '  an  element  of 
black  streaked  with  lightning.'  Swift,  when  the  evil 
nmour  was  on  him,  made  a  voyage  to  the  Houyhnhmns, 
and  discharged  his  bile  on  his  human  brethren.  Carlyle, 
who  wished  to  purge  the  bile  out  of  himself  that  he  might 
use  his  powers  to  better  purposes,  began  with  a  confession 
of  his  sins. 

Journal. 

Novemher  9,  1852. — There  has  been  a  repair  of  the  house  here, 
which  is  not  yet,  after  four  months,  quite  complete.  I  write  now 
in  an  unfurnished  but  greatly  improved  room,  which  is  already, 
and  still  more  will  be,  greatly  superior  to  what  it  used  to  be  .  .  •. 
small  thanks  to  it.  My  poor  wife  has  worn  herself  to  a  shadow, 
fretting  and  struggling  about  it.  I,  sent  on  my  travels  since  the 
middle  of  July,  and  only  just  finally  home,  am  totally  overset  in 
soul,  in  body,  and  I  may  fear  in  breeches  pocket  too ;  and  feel 
that  I  am  drifting  towards  strange  issues  in  these  years  and  days. 
Never  in  my  life  nearer  sunk  in  the  mud  oceans  that  rage  from 
without  and  within.  My  survey  of  the  last  eight  or  nine  years  of 
my  life  yields  little  '  comfort '  in  the  present  state  of  my  feelings. 
Silent  weak  rage,  remorse  even,  which  is  not  common  with  me  ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  a  solitude  of  soul  coupled  with  a  helplessness, 
which  are  frightful  to  look  upon,  difficult  to  deal  with  in  my  pres- 
ent situation.  For  my  health  is  miserable  too ;  diseased  liner  I 
privately  perceive  has  much  to  do  with  the  phenomenon  ;  and  I 
cannot  yet  learn  to  sleep  again.  During  all  my  travels  I  have 
wanted  from  a  third  to  half  of  my  usual  sleep.  For  the  rest  I 
guess  it  is  a  change  of  epoch  with  me,  going  on  for  good  perhaps  ; 
I  am  growing  to  perceive  that  I  have  become  an  old  man  ;  that  the 
flowery  umbrages  of  summer — such  as  they  were  for  me — and  also 
the  crops  and  fruits  of  autumn  are  nearly  over  for  me,  and  stern 
winter  only  is  to  be  looked  for — a  grim  message — such,  however, 
as  is  sent  to  every  man.  Oh  ye  Supreme  Powers  !  thou  great  soul 
of  the  world  that  art  just,  may  I  manage  this  but  ivell,  all  sorrow 
then  and  smothered  rage  and  despair  itself  shall  have  been  cheap 


Refiedions,  1Q5 

and  welcome.  No  more  of  it  to-day.  I  am  not  yet  at  the  bottom  of 
it ;  am  not  here  writing  wisely  of  it,  even  sincerely  of  it,  though 
with  an  ettbrt  that  way. 

Dundee  steamer  to  Linlathen  about  the  middle  of  July  ;  inex- 
pressible gloom,  silence.  Sickly  imprisonment  of  oncis  whole 
soul  and  life  ;  such  has  often  before  been  my  lot,  has  also  become 
my  customary  lot  in  this  world.  Cowardice  ?  Sometimes.  Gen- 
erally, in  late  years,  I  think  it  is.  Unusual  weights  liave  been 
thrown  upon  me.  Ach  Gott !  whole  mountains  of  horror  and  chok- 
ing imi>ediment.  But  certainly  I  have  not  been  strong  enough  on 
my  side ;  often,  often  not  bold  enough  ;  but  have  fled  and  struck 
when  I  should  have  stood  and  defiantly  fought.  The  votes  of  men, 
the  respectabilities,  the  &c.  &c. ,  have  been  too  sacred  to  me.  It 
must  be  owned,  too,  the  man  has  had  such  a  set  of  conditions  as 
were  not  always  easy  to  govern,  and  could  not  by  the  old  law- 
books be  treated  well.  Schickaal  und  eigen  Schuld.  Aye,  aye. 
Three  weeks  at  Linlathen  very  memorable  to  me  just  now,  but 
sordid,  unproductive,  to  think  of.  Came  away,  by  Kirkcaldy  and 
Edinburgh,  to  Scotsbrig.  There  beside  my  poor  old  mother  for 
near  four  weeks.  ...  To  Germany,  after  infinite  struggles,  I 
had  roused  myself  to  go.  ...  .  Leith,  Rotterdam  steamer,  the 
Rhine,  Bonn  for  a  week.  Ems,  Frankfurt,  Homburg,  Cassel,  Eisen- 
ach, Wartburg  (unforgettable),  Weimar,  Leipzig,  Dresden,  Lo- 
bositz,  Zittau,  Herrahut,  Kuneradorf,  and  Berlin,  whence,  after 
ten  days,  home. 

My  arrival  here.  Seas  of  paint  still  flooding  everything,  and 
my  j)Oor  Jane  so  beaten  in  her  hard  battle — a  wild  hard  battle 
many  ways,  and  in  which  I  cannot  help  thee,  poor  kind  vehement 
soul  for  ever  dear  to  me — this  also  is  memorable,  only  too  much. 
We  went  to  the  Grange  till  these  uncleannesses  were  over  here. 
At  the  Grange  almost  for  four  weeks.  No  right  rest,  no  right  col- 
lapse till  Tuesday  last,  when  in  the  wet  damp  evening  of  a  pouring 
day  I  once  more  got  home  again  for  a  continuance.  Since  then, 
here  are  we  fairly  fronting  our  destiny  at  least,  which  I  own  is 
sufficiently  Medusa-like  to  these  sick,  solitary  eyes.  Courage! 
piety !  patience !  Heaven  grant  me  wisdom  to  extract  the  mean- 
ings  out  of  these  sore  lessons  and  to  do  the  behests  of  the  same. 
If  that  be  granted  me,  oh  how  amply  enough  will  that  be  ! 

To  begin  '  Frederick '  then  !  It  was  easier  to  propose 
than  to  do.   When  a  writer  sets  to  work  again  after  a  long 


1Q6  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

pause,  his  faculties  have,  as  it  were,  to  be  caught  in  the 
field  and  brought  in  and  harnessed.  There  was  anxiety 
about  his  wife  too,  who  was  worn  out  bj  her  summer  dis- 
cipline, and  was  '  never  thinner  for  seven  years.'  She  had 
gone  home  first  from  the  Grange  to  get  things  ready. 

Jane  (be  wrote  to  Ms  mother)  had  the  place  clear  of  workers  at 
last,  clean  as  her  wont  is,  and  shining  with  gas  at  the  door,  and 
other  lights  to  welcome  me  to  tea,  I  have  had  a  weary  struggle 
every  day  since,  and  am  not  through  it  yet,  arranging  my  things 
in  their  new  places,  an  operation  rather  sad  than  hopeful  to  me  in 
my  present  dull  humour,  but  I  must  persist  till  it  is  done,  and 
then  by-and-by  there  will  be  real  improvement.  The  house  is 
clearly  very  niuch  bettered  ;  this  room  of  mine  in  particular,  and 
my  bed-room  upstairs,  are,  or  will  be,  perfect  beauties  of  rooms 
in  their  way.  Let  us  be  patient,  '  canny  as  eggs,'  and  the  better 
day  will  come  at  last.  I  am  terribly  hrashed  with  all  these  tum- 
blings about,  and  have  not  yet  fairly  recovered  my  feet,  but  with 
quiet,  with  pious  endeavour,  I  shall  surely  do  so  ;  and  then  it  will 
be  joyful  to  me  to  see  the  black  tempest  lying  all  behind  me  and 
the  bright  side  of  the  cloud  attained  for  me.  All  clouds  have 
their  bright  sides  too.  That  is  also  a  thing  which  we  should  re- 
member ;  and,  on  the  whole,  I  hope  to  get  to  a  little  wm^k  again, 
and  that  is  the  consolation  which  surpasses  all  for  me. 

lie  would  have  got  under  way  in  some  shape,  but,  be- 
fore starting,  any  distraction  is  enough  to  clieck  the  first 
step,  and  there  were  distractions  in  plenty  ;  among  the 
rest  the  Diike  of  Wellington's  funeral.  The  Duke  had 
died  in  September.  He  was  now  to  be  laid  in  his  tomb 
in  the  midst  of  a  mourning  nation ;  and  Carlyle  did  not 
like  the  display.  The  body  lay  in  state  at  Chelsea,  ^  all 
the  empty  fools  of  creation '  running  to  look  at  it.  One 
day  two  women  were  trampled  to  death  in  the  throng  at 
the  hospital  close  by ;  and  the  whole  thing,  *  except  for 
that  dreadful  accident,'  was,  in  his  eyes,  '  a  big  bag  of  wind 
and  nothingness.'  '  It  is  indeed,'  he  said,  '  a  sad  and 
solemn  fact  for  England  that  such  a  man  lias  been  called 
away,  the  last  perfectly  honest  and  perfectly  brave  public 


Wellington's  Funeral,  107 

man  they  had  ;  and  they  ought,  in  reverence,  to  reflect  on 
that,  and  sincerely  testify  that^  if  they  could,  while  they 
connnit  liini  to  his  resting-place.  But  alas  for  the  sin- 
cerity. It  is  even  professedly  all  liypocrisy,  noise,  and 
expensive  upholstery,  from  which  a  serious  man  tui*ns 
away  with  sorrow  and  abhorrence.'  In  spite  of  ' abhoi- 
rence '  he  was  tempted  to  witness  the  ceremony  in  the 
streets,  which,  however,  only  increased  it. 

Journal. 
Novembei'  19,  1852. — Yesterday  saw  the  Duke  of  Wellington's 
funeral  procession  from  Bath  House  second-floor  windows ;  a 
iminfnl,  miserable  kind  of  thing  to  me  and  others  of  a  serious  turn 
of  mind.  The  one  true  man  of  official  men  in  England,  or  that  I 
know  of  in  Europe,  concludes  his  long  course.  The  military  mu- 
sic soimded,  and  the  tramp  of  feet  and  the  roll  of  guns  and 
coaches,  to  liim  inaudible  for  evermore.  The  regiment  he  frst 
served  in  was  there,  various  regiments  or  battalions,  one  soldier 
from  every  regiment  of  the  British  line ;  above  4,000  soldiers  in 
all.  Nothing  else  in  the  sumptuous  procession  was  of  the  least 
dignity.  The  car  or  liearee,  a  monstrous  bronze  mass,  which  broke 
through  the  pavement  in  various  places,  its  weight  being  seven  or 
ten  tons,  was  of  all  the  objects  I  ever  saw  the  abominably  ugliest, 
or  nearly  so.  An  incoherent  huddle  of  expensive  palls,  flags, 
slioets,  and  gilt  emblems  and  cross  poles,  more  like  one  of  the 
street  carts  that  hawk  door-mats  than  the  bier  for  a  hero.  Disgust 
was  general  at  this  vile  ne  plus  ultra  of  Cockneyism ;  but  poor 
Wellington  lay  dead  beneath  it  faring  dumb  to  his  long  home. 
All  people  stood  in  deep  silence  and  reverently  took  off*  their  hats. 
In  one  of  the  Queen's  carriages  sat  a  man  conspicuously  reading 
the  morning  newspaper.  Tennyson's  veilSes  are  naught.  Silenco 
alone  is  respectable  on  such  an  occasion. 

'  Frederick  '  meanwhile  was  still  unstarted.  Where  to 
])egiu  ?  On  what  scale  ?  In  what  tone  ?  All  was  un- 
settled, and.  JMncertainty,  with  Carlyle,  was  irritation  and 

(If  ■  ;cy. 

A>  u>sm*i  I  he  says,  on  ttie  51  li  of  December)  many  things,  or  al- 
most all  things,  are  conspiring  to  hinder  me  from  any  clear  work, 
or  to  choke  up  my  power  of  working  altogether.     If  I  do  not  stand 


108     '  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

to  myself  and  to  my  own  cause  it  will  be  the  worse  for  me. 
Heaven  help  me  !  Oh  Heaven !  But  it  is  so  always.  The  ele- 
m.ents  of  our  work  lie  scattered,  disorganised,  as  if  in  a  thick  vis- 
cous chaotic  ocean,  ocean  illimitable  in  all  its  three  dimensions  ; 
and  we  must  swim  and  sprawl  towai'ds  them,  must  snatch  them, 
and  victoriously  piece  them  together  as  we  can.  Eheu  !  Shall  I 
try  Frederick,  or  not  try  him  ? 

The  winter  passed  on.    In  January  he  tells  his  mother : — 

Our  quiet  way  of  life  continues,  and  our  wet  weather,  and  other 
puddles,  outward  and  inward,  have  not  ceased  either.  We  should 
be  thankful  for  the  health  we  have,  both  of  us.  If  we  use  our 
besom  machinery  and  sweep  honestly  and  well,  the  puddles  do  not 
gain  quite  the  upper  hand  after  all.  Jane  is  out  just  now,  gone 
out  to  enjoy  the  dry  day  among  so  many  wet.  She  complains  of 
defective  sleep,  &c.,  but  still  goes  hardily  about,  and  indeed  I 
think  is  stronger  than  in  past  years.  She  reads  now  with  specs  in 
the  candlelight,  as  well  as  I ;  uses  her  mother's  specs  I  perceive, 
and  indeed  looks  very  well  in  them,  going  handsomely  into  the 
condition  of  an  elderly  dame.  I  remember  always  your  joy  over 
specs.  Old  age  is  not  in  itself  matter  for  sorrow.  It  is  matter  for 
thanks  if  we  have  left  our  work  done  behind  us.  God  deal  with  us 
in  mercy,  not  in  rigour,  on  that  head  ;  as  we  trust  it  will  be  for  the 
faithful  of  us.  But,  in  fact,  it  is  not  a  serious  person's  sorrow 
surely  that  he  is  getting  out  of  the  battle  ;  that  he  sees  the  still 
regions  beyond  it,  where  there  is  no  battle  more. 

He  began  at  last  to  write  something — bnt  it  was  WTongly 
pitched.  It  w^ould  not  do,  and  he  threw  it  aside.  In 
March  he  was  off  to  the  Grange  again — off  there  always 
when  the  Ashbnrtons^invited  him — but  always,  or  almost 
so,  to  no  purpose.  '  Worse  than  useless  to  me,'  he  said 
when  the  visit  w^as  over.  'A  long  nightmare  ;  folly  and 
indigestion  the  order  of  the  day.  Why  go  thither  ? 
Eeally  it  neither  does,  nor  can  do  me  any  good  to  frecfnent 
that  much  coveted  kind  of  society — or,  alas  !  any  kind.  I 
believe  there  is  no  lonelier  mortal  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
at  present,  nor  perhaps  often  was.  Don't  be  a  Kojpf- 
hdngei\  how^ever.     Use  Solitude,  since  it  is  thy  lot ;  that 


Beginning/  of  ^Fredein^k.^  109 

also  is  a  lot,  and  rather  an  original  one  in  these  days.' 
Tlie  party  at  the  Grange  was  in  itself  brilliant  enough. 
Yenables  was  there,  whom  he  liked  better  than  most  men; 
and  Azeglio  and  other  notabilities.  But  even  Yenables, 
on  this  occasion,  he  found  *  dogmatic,'  and  to  Azeglio  he 
was  rude.  Azeglio  had  been  talking  contemptuously  of 
Mazzini.  ''Monsieur^  said  Carlyle  to  liim,  ^ vous  ne  le 
connaissez  jpas  du  tout,  du  tout  !  '  and  turned  away  and  sat 
down  to  a  newspaper.  '  Xot  a  word  of  sense  was  talked 
to  him,  except  by  accident.'  One  thing,  however,  did 
occur  which  impressed  him  considerably,  and  of  which  I 
often  heard  him  speak. 

To  Margaret  Carlyle^  Scotshrig. 

The  Grange,  April  1,  1853. 
Last  night,  while  we  sate  quietly  at  dinner,  a  slip  of  paper  was 
handed  in  by  one  of  the  servants  to  Lord  Asliburton.  *  A  fii*e 
visible  somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood.'  I  admired  much  the 
silent  promptitude  ^vith  which  Lord  A.,  telling  nobody,  went  out, 
leaving  his  dinner  in  the  middle,  drew  on  boots  and  cloak  as  we 
found  afterwards,  and  galloped  off  with  a  gi-oom  in  the  wild, 
squally  night,  which  soon  became  jjlunges  of  rain.  This  is  what 
an  English  country  gentleman  is  always  good  for,  this  and  the  lilce 
of  this,  if  he  is  of  the  right  quality.  The  fire  proved  to  be  six 
miles  off — one  of  the  farmers  of  this  estate,  his  'omstead  all  in  a 
blaze,  cattle,  &c.,  saved.  Lord  A.  came  back  about  eleven,  wet 
enough,  but  one  would  have  said  almost  glad  ;  though  to  him  also 
it  will  be  a  considerable  loss,  no  doubt. 

A  week  at  the  Grange  was  as  nmch  as  he  could  bear, 
and  it  did  not  seem  to  have  done  very  much  for  him. 

Journal. 
April  13,  1853. — Still  stmggling  and  haggling  about  Frederick. 
Ditto  ditto,  alas !  about  many  things  !  No  words  can  express  the 
forlorn,  heai-t-broken,  silent,  utterly  enchanted  kind  of  humour  I 
am  kept  in  ;  the  worthless,  empty,  and  painfully  contemptible  way 
in  which,  with  no  company  but  my  own,  with  my  eyes  open,  but 
as  with  my  hands  bound,  I  pass  these  days  and  months,  and  even 
years.     Good  Heavens !    Shall  I  never  more  rally  in  this  world 


110  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

then,  but  lie  buried  under  mnd  and  imbecility  till  the  end  itself 
(which  cannot  be  distant,  and  is  coming  on  as  with  seven-leagned 
boots)  overtake  me  ?  Several  are  to  blame  ;  for  though  no  one 
hates  me,  I  think  nearly  everybody  of  late  takes  me  on  the  wrong 
side,  and  proves  unconsciously  unjust  to  me,  more  or  less  destruc- 
tive to  me.  Several  are  to  blame,  or  to  pity.  But  above  all  there 
is  one.  Thou  thyself.  Awake — arise !  Oh  heaven  and  earth,  shall 
I  never  again  get  awake,  and  feel  myself  working  and  alive  ?  In 
the  earth  there  is  no  other  pleasure  for  me,  no  other  possession  for 
me  but  that  same  ;  and  I  neglect  it,  indolently  lie  praying  for  it, 
do  not  rise  and  victoriously  snatch  it,  while  the  fast  fleeting  days 
yet  are.  Here  are  now  ten  years,  and  what  account  can  I  give  of 
them  ?  The  work  done  in  them  is  very  small  even,  in  comparison. 
Kemorse  is  worthless.  The  remnant  of  the  future,  this  yet  re- 
mains to  us.  .  .  .  Endless  German  history  books  ;  dull,  bad, 
mostly  wearisome ;  most  uninstructive,  every  one  of  them ;  Fred- 
erick, an  unfortunate  subject.  In  the  heart  of  huge  aolar  systems 
— anti-solar  rather,  of  chaff  and  whirling  confusions,  I  sometimes 
think  I  notice  lineaments  of  a  Fritz,  concerning  whom  I  shall  have 
a  word  to  say — say  it  ?     Oh  Heaven,  that  I  could  say  it ! 

The  review  newspaper  and  world,  all  dead  against  me  at  present, 
which  is  instructive  too  if  I  take  the  right  point  of  survey  for  it, 
and  look  into  it  without  jaundice  of  any  kind.  The  canaille  of 
talkers  in  type  are  not  my  friends  then.  They  know  not  well  what 
to  say  about  me  if  not  '  Thou,  scoundrel,  art  of  other  mind  than 
we,  it  would  appear  ; '  which  the  wiser  are  afraid  might  be  question- 
able ;  and  the  unwiser,  with  one  voice  pretty  much,  have  already 
done.  Well,  out  of  that  too  I  had  got  new  views.  I  myself  was 
in  fault,  and  the  depths  and  immensities  of  human  stupidity  were 
not  practically  known  to  me  before.  A  strange  insight,  real,  but 
hardly  fit  for  utteiing  even  here,  lies  in  that.  '  Who  can  change 
the  opinion  of  these  people  ?  '  That  is  their  view  of  the  world,  ir- 
refragable, unalterable  to  them.  Take  note  of  that,  remember 
that.  '  The  Gadarene  Swine  !  '  Often,  in  my  rage,  has  that  inci- 
dent occurred  to  me.  Shrill  snort  of  astonishment,  of  alert  atten- 
tion. '  Hrumph  ! '  '  That  is  it,  then  ! '  *  So  sits  the  wind  ! '  And 
with  tails  up  and  one  accord  at  full  speed  away  they  go,  down 
steep  places  to  their  watery  grave,  the  Devil  being  in  them. 
Withal  it  is  rather  curious  to  remark  also,  as  I  do  on  various  occa- 
sions, how,  while  all  the  talk  and  print  goes  against  me,  my  real 
estimation  in  the  world— alas,  certainly  without  new  merit  of  mine. 


A  Sage's  Sorrows,  111 

for  I  never  Teas  so  idle  and  worthless— seems  steadily  increasing — 
steadily  in  various  quarters,  and  surely  fast  enough,  if  not  too  fast. 
Bo  true  to  thyself.  Oh  Heaven !  Be  not  a  sluggard.  And  so  give 
up  this  and  take  to  something  like  work. 

To  try  to  work  Carlyle  was  determined  enough.  1 1  e  went 
nowliere  in  the  Buminer,  ])ut  remained  at  Chelsea  chained 
to  '  Frederickj'  and,  moving  ahead  at  last,  leaving  his  wife 
to  take  a  holiday.  His  brother  John,  who  was  now  mar- 
ried, had  taken  a  house  at  Moffat,  and  Mrs.  Carlyle,  need- 
ing change,  w^ent  off  to  stay  w^ith  him  there.  Paint  was 
wanted  in  Cheyne  Row  again,  and  Carlyle  w^as  exquisitely 
sensitive  to  tlie  smell  of  it.  Otlier  cocks — not,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  Mr.  Remington's — set  up  their  pipes  in  the  summer 
mornings.  'Yile  yellow  Italians'  came  grinding  under 
his  windows.  He  had  a  terrible  time  of  it ;  but  he  set 
his  teeth  and  determined  to  bear  his  fate.  One  haunting 
thought  only  refused  to  leave  him.  Good  might  still  lie 
ahead  if  his  wife  and  he  could  keep  the  devil  out  of  them. 
If !  but  what  an  ^  if ' ! 

O  Jeannie  (ho  wrote),  you  know  nothing  ahout  me  just  now. 
With  all  the  cl(?arne.ss  of  vision  you  have,  your  lynx-eyes  do  not 
reach  into  the  inner  region  of  nie,  and  know  not  what  is  in  my 
heart,  what,  on  the  whole,  was  always,  and  will  always  be  there.  I 
^ish  you  did  ;  I  wish  you  did. 

Sitting  all  alone  in  his  Clielsea  garden  he  meditated  on 
his  miseries,  in  one  letter  eloquently  dilating  on  them,  in 
the  next  apologising  for  his  weakness. 

But  what  could  I  do  (he  said)  ?  fly  for  shelter  to  my  mammy, 
like  a  poor  infant  with  its  finger  cut  ?  complain  in  my  distress  to 
the  one  heart  that  used  to  be  opey  to  me  ? 

'  Greater  than  man,  less  than  woman,'  as  Essex  said  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  The  cocks  were  locked  up  next  door, 
and  the  fireworks  at  Cremorne  were  silent,  and  the  rain 
fell  and  cooled  I  lie  July  air;  and  Carlyle  slept,  and  the 
universe  became  uiice  more  tolerable. 


112  ■        Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

With  friends  outside  his  family  he  was  equally  discon- 
solate. 

To  TJiomas  Erskine,  LinlatJien. 

Chelsea  :  July  9,  1853. 

I  had  a  very  miserable  tour  in  Germany ;  not  one  night  of  sleep 
all  the  time,  and  nothing,  or  too  little,  of  the  Uving  kind  that  was 
beautiful  to  look  upon  in  return  for  all  that  physical  distress  at 
once  so  tormenting  and  so  degrading.  I  remember  the  Khine 
river  as  a  noble  acquisition  to  my  internal  j)icture  gallery.  Co- 
logne, &c.,  I  got  no  good  of,  but  rather  mischief;  the  sight  of 
those  impious  charlatans  doing  their  so-called  '  worship  '  there  (a 
true  devil  worship,  if  ever  there  was  one) ;  and  the  fatal  brood, 
architectural  and  others — Puseyites  and  enchanted  human  apes 
that  inhabit  such  places — far  transcended  any  little  pleasure  I 
could  have  got  from  the  supreme  of  earthly  masonry,^  and  con- 
verted my  feeling  into  a  sad  and  angry  one.  I  w^as  in  the  Wart- 
burg,  however — in  Martin  Luther's  room — and  I  believe  I  almost 
wept  there,  feeling  it  to  be,  as  far  as  I  could  understand,  the  most 
sacred  spot  in  all  the  earth  at  this  moment.  Here,  tempted  by 
the  devil  (always  by  '  devils  '  enough),  but  not  subdued  or  subdu- 
able,  stood  God's  Truth,  embodied  in  the  usual  way :  one  man 
against  all  men.  It  was  upon  these  hills  he  looked  out ;  it  was 
there  and  in  that  way  he  dealt  with  the  devil  and  defied  him  to  his 
face.  A  scene  worth  visiting  indeed.  There  are  excellent  por- 
traits by  Cranach  of  Luther  and  his  father  and  mother  hung  on 
the  walls.  Martin  himself  has  a  fine  German  face  :  eyes  so  frank 
and  serious,  a  look  as  if  he  could  take  a  cup  of  ale  as  well  as  wres- 
tle down  the  devil  in  a  handsome  manner. 

The  Wartburg  is  much  visited  by  tourists  ;  but  I  was  not  sorry 
to  find  they  did  not  much  heed  Luther — merely  took  him  among 
the  rest  and  dwelt  chiefly  on  the  '  Byzantine  architecture '  and 
restorations.  The  only  other  beautiful  thing  I  saw  was  Tieck, 
and  he  is  since  dead.     On  Fritz  I  can  make  no  impression  what- 

'  Bunsen  had  once  tried  to  enlist  Carlyle's  sympathies  in  the  completion  of 
Cologne  cathedral,  showing  him  the  plans,  &c.  Carlyle  said  nothing  till 
obliged  to  speak.  Then  at  last,  being  forced,  he  said  :  '  It  is  a  very  fine  pa- 
goda if  ye  could  get  any  sort  of  a  God  to  put  in  it ! '  Bunsen's  eyes  flashed 
anger  for  a  moment,  but  the  '  ridiculous '  was  too  strong  for  him,  and  he 
burst  out  laughing.  I  have  heard  the  story  told  as  if  there  had  been  a  break- 
fast party  with  bishops,  &c. ,  present.  Carlyle,  however,  when  I  asked  him, 
said  that  he  and  Bunsen  were  alone. 


End  Xcar  at  SroUhrig.  113 

ever,  and  practically  consider  1  have  given  him  up  and  am  not 
equal  to  such  a  task  on  such  terms. 

My  wife  is  now  at  Moffat  with  my  brother  and  his  household. 
As  to  me,  I  got  so  smashed  to  pieces  and  perceptibly  hurt  in  every 
way  by  my  journeying  last  autumn — all  travel  and  noise  is  at  all 
times  so  noxious  to  me — I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  brook  the 
notion  of  travelling  since,  but  have  flattered  myself  I  should  sit 
still  here,  and  would  on  almost  any  terms.  Ceiiain  it  is,  I  have 
need  enough  to  stay  here,  if  staying  by  myself  in  my  own  sad  com- 
])any  be  the  way  to  riddle  any  of  the  infinite  dross  out  of  me  and 
get  a  little  nearer  what  grains  of  metal  there  may  be. 

Adieu !  dear  Mr.  Erakine.     Give  my  kind  and  grateful  remem- 
brances to  your  two  ladies  and  to  eveiybody  at  Linlathen. 
I  am  always  faithfully  yours, 

T.  CAKLYIiE. 

A  real  calamity,  sad  but  inevitable  and  long  foreseen, 
was  now  approach inii:.  Signs  began  to  show  that  his  old 
mother  at  Scotsbrig  was  drawing  near  the  end  of  lier  pil- 
grimage. She  was  reported  to  be  ill,  and  even  danger- 
onsly  ill.  Mrs.  Carljle  hurried  over  from  Moffat  to  assist 
in  nursing  her,  meeting,  when'  slie  arrived  there,  the  never- 
forgotten  but  liumbly  offered  birthday  present  of  July  14 
from  her  poor  husband.  Her  mother-in-law,  while  she 
was  there,  sank  into  the  long,  death-like  trance  which  she 
so  vividly  describes.'  Contrary  to  all  expectations,  the 
strong  resolute  woman  rallied  fiom  it,  and  Carlyle,  always 
hopeful,  persuaded  himself  that  for  the  time  the  stroke  had 
passed  over. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  ScoL^brig. 

Chelsea :  July  23,  1853. 

Thank  you  very  much,  my  dear,  for  your  judicious  and  kind  at- 
fontion  in  writing  and  in  not  writing.  You  may  judge  with  what 
t'o(»ling8  I  road  your  letter  last  night,  and  again  and  again  read  it ; 
liow  anxiously  I  expect  what  you  will  say  to-night.  If  I  had  in- 
deed known  what  was  going  on  during  Monday,  what  would  have 
become  of  me  that  day  ?  I  see  everything  by  your  description  as 
if  I  Jooked  at  it  with  my  own  eyes.    My  j)oor,  beloved,  good  old 

'  T^ttrvH  and  AfetnoriaU^  vol.  ii.  p.  11. 
Vol.  IV.— « 


114  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

mother.  Things  crowd  round  me  in  my  solitude,  old  reminiscen- 
ces from  the  very  beginnings  of  my  life.  It  is  very  beautiful  if  it 
is  so  sad ;  and  I  have  nothing  to  say.  I,  like  all  mortals,  have  to 
feel  the  inexorable  that  there  is  in  life,  and  to  say,  as  piously  as  I 
can,  '  God's  will,  God's  will ! '  Upon  the  whole,  I  am  glad  you 
went  there  at  this  time.  If  you  could  only  begin  to  sleep  I  should 
be  thankful  to  have  you  there  in  my  own  absence.  Write  to  me  ; 
do  not  fail  to  write  while  you  continue.  Was  not  that  a  beautiful 
old  mother's  message  :  '  None,  I  am  afraid,  that  he  would  like  to 
hear '  ?  ^  Sunt  lacrymce  rerum.  You  need  not  be  apprehensive 
of  — —  where  you  are.  She  really  likes  you,  and  has  good  insight, 
though  capable  of  strong  prepossessions.  John,  even  if  you  are 
in  his  way,  which  I  do  not  think  at  all,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
The  rest  are  loyal  to  you  to  the  bone.  Surely,  as  you  say,  it  was  quite 
wrong  to  give  such  quantities  of  wine,  &c.,  to  an  old,  weak  person. 
I  hope  and  trust  John  has  entirely  abandoned  that  system.  It  is 
purchasing  of  momentary  relief  at  a  price  which  must  be  minous. 

I  have  done  my  task  to-day  again,  but  I  had  drugs  in  me,  and 
am  not  in  a  very  vigorous  humour.  My  task  is  a  most  dreary  one. 
I  am  too  old  for  blazing  up  round  this  Fritz  and  his  affairs  ;  and  I 
see  it  will  be  a  dreadful  job  to  riddle  his  history  into  purity  and 
consistency  out  of  the  endless  mbbish  of  so  many  dullards  as  have 
treated  of  it.  But  I  will  tiy,  too.  I  cannot  yet  afford  to  be  beaten  ; 
and  truly  there  is  no  other  thing  attainable  to  me  in  life  except 
even  my  own  poor  scantling  of  work  such  as  it  may  be.  If  I  can 
work  no  more,  what  is  the  good  of  me  further  ?  We  shall  all  have 
a  right  deep  sleep  by-and-by,  my  own  little  Jeannie.  Thou  wilt 
lie  quiet  beside  me  there  in  the  divine  bosom  of  eternity,  if  never 
in  the  diabolic  whirl  of  time  any  more.  But  this  is  too  sad  a  say- 
ing, though  to  me  it  is  blessed  and  indubitable  as  well  as  sad. 

I  called  on  Lady  A ;  less  mocking  than  usual ;  is  to  have  a 

last  Addiscombe  party  on  Saturday  week,  and  then  go  for  the 
North. 

Adieu !  Jeannie  mine.  God  bless  for  ever  my  poor  mother  and 
thee !  T.  C. 

The  alarm  at  Scotsbrig  having  passed  off,  minor  evils 
became  again  important.    The  great  cock  question  revived 

1  '  I  asked  her  if  she  had  any  message  for  j'ou,  and  she  said,  "None,  I'm 
afraid,  that  he  would  like  to  hear,  for  he'll  be  sorry  that  I'm  so  frail."  '-—Let- 
ters and  Memorials,  vol.  ii.  p.  13. 


Jlic  Demon  FmoU.  115 

in  formidable  proportions.  Mrs.  Carlj^le  liad  prone  to  her 
cousin's  at  Liverpool,  but  her  presence  was  needed  urgently 
in  Cheyne  Row  to  deal  with  it.  A  room  was  to  be  con- 
structed at  the  top  of  the  house,  where  neither  cockcrows 
nor  other  sound  could  penetrate;  but  until  it  was  completed 
*  the  unprotected  male,'  as  Carlyle  called  himself,  was  suf- 
fering dismally. 

I  foresee  in  general  (lie  wrote  to  her  on  July  27)  these  cocks  will 
require  to  be  abolished,  entirely  silenced,  whether  we  build  the 
new  room  or  not.  I  would  cheerfully  shoot  them,  and  pay  the 
price  if  discovered,  but  I  have  no  gun,  should  be  unsafe  for  hitting, 
and  indeed  seldom  see  the  wretched  animals.  Failing  everything, 
I  see  dimly  the  ultima  ratio,  and  indeed  wish  I  had  in  my  dmwer 
what  of  minei-al  or  vegetable  extract  would  do  the  fatal  deed. 
Truly  I  think  often  it  will  need  to  be  (lone.  A  man  is  not  a  Chat- 
ham nor  a  Wallengtein  ;  but  a  man  has  work  too  which  the  Powers 
would  not  quite  wish  to  have  suppressed  by  two-and-sixpence  worth 
of  bantams.  O !  my  dear !  my  deai- !  I  am  a  most  un victorious  man 
surely. 

Morning  after  morning  the  horrid  clarions  blew. 

The  cocks  must  either  withdraw  or  die  (he  cried,  two  days  later.) 
That  is  a  fixed  point ;  and  I  must  do  it  myself  if  no  one  will  help. 
It  is  really  too  bad  that  a  '  celebrated  man,'  or  any  man,  or  even  a 
well-conditioned  animal  of  any  size,  should  be  submitted  to  such 
scandalous  paltrinesses ;  and  it  must  end,  and  I  had  better  make 
that  my  first  business  to-day.  But  I  will  do  nothing  till  you  come. 
Then  indeed  I  feel  as  if  mercy  were  already  wrought  for  me. 

For  some  cause  there  was  a  respite  for  a  night  or  two, 
but  now  the  owner  of  the  cocks,  one  Ronca,  was  heard 
coughing  at  half-past  eight  in  the  morning,  and  this — but 
this  could  hardly  be  made  a  crime.  *  Poor  devil ! '  he  said 
to  In'iiisdf,  with  a  tinge  of  remorso,  'a  l)ad  cough  indeed  ; 
iind  I  am  to  be  annoyed  at  the  wwvr.  noise  of  it.  Selfish 
mortal  ! '  Lady  Ashburton,  hearing  of  his  forlorn  condi- 
tion, made  over  the  now  vacant  Addiscombe  to  him.  His 
wife  came  back.     The  cocks  were  for  a  time  disposed  o^ 


116  Oarlyle's  Life  in  London, 

and  the  new  room  was  set  about.  The  new  room  was  the 
final  hope.  Till  it  was  finished  there  could  be  no  surety 
of  peace.  ^  Ach  Gott!''  he  said,  'I  am  wretched,  and  in 
silence  nearly  mad.' 

Journal. 

August  17,  1853. — Near  the  nadir,  I  should  think,  in  my  affairs. 
The  wheel  must  turn.  Let  me  not  quite  despair.  All  summer, 
which  I  resolved  to  spend  here,  at  least  without  the  distraction  of 
travel  for  a  new  hindrance,  I  have  been  visibly  below  par  in  health ; 
annoyed  with  innumerable  paltiy  things  ;  and,  to  crown  all — a  true 
mock-crown — with  the  crowings,  shriekings,  and  half-maddening 
noises  of  a  stock  of  fowls  which  my  poor  neighbour  has  set  up  for 
his  profit  and  amusement.  To  great  evils  one  must  oppose  great 
virtues;  and  also  to  small,  which  is  the  harder  task  of  the  two. 
Masons,  who  have  already  killed  half  a  year  of  my  life  in  a  too  sad 
manner,  are  again  upon  the  roof  of  the  house,  after  a  dreadful  bout 
of  resolution  on  my  part,  building  me  a  soundless-  room.  The  world, 
which  can  do  me  no  good,  shall  at  least  not  torment  me  with  its 
street  and  backyard  noises.  It  is  all  the  small  request  I  make  of 
the  world,  says  wounded  vanity,  wounded  &c.  ;  in  fact,  a  wounded 
and  humiliated  mind.  No  more  unvictorious  man  is  now  living. 
I  can  do  no  work  though  I  still  keep  trying.  Try  better  !  Alas  ! 
alas !  my  dear  old  mother  seems  to  be  fading  fast  away  from  me. 
My  thoughts  are  dark  and  sad  continually  with  that  idea.  Inexorabile 
fatum  !  The  great,  the  eternal  is  there,  and  also  the  paltriest  and 
smallest,  to  load  me  down.  I  seem  to  be  sinking  inextricably  into 
chaos.  But  I  won't !  These  are  the  two  extremes  of  my  lot  of 
burdens  ;  and  there  lie  enough  more,  and  sore  enough  between,  of 
which  I  write  nothing  here.  I  am  getting  taught  contempt  of  the 
world  and  its  beneficences.  Nay,  perhaps  I  am  really  learning. 
Let  me  learn  vfiih.  piety.  Perhaps  I  shall  one  day  bless  these  mise- 
ries too.  Steady !  steady !  Don't  give  it  up !  .  .  .  Panizzi, 
Avliom  I  do  not  love,  and  who  returns  the  feeling,  icill  not,  though 
solicited  from  various  quarters — high  quarters  some  of  them— 
admit  me  to  the  silent  rooms  of  the  King's  Library,  to  a  place 
where  I  could  read  and  enquire.  Never  mind  !  No  matter  at  all ! 
Perhaps  it  is  even  better  so.  I  believe  I  could  explode  the  poor 
monster  if  I  took  to  petitioning,  writing  in  the  '  Times,'  &c.  But 
I  shall  take  good  heed  of  that.  Intrinsically  he  hinders  me  but 
little.     Intrinsically,  the  blame  is  not  in  him,  but  in  the  prurient 


Mueries  Great  and  ISmaU.  117 

darkness  and  confused  pedantry  and  ostentatious  inanity  of  the 
world  which  put  him  there,  and  which  I  must  own  he  very  faii-ly 
represents  and  symbolizes  there.  Lords  Lansdowne  and  Brougham 
put  Pauizzi  in ;  and  the  world  with  its  Hansards  and  ballot-boxes 
and  sublime  apparatus  put  in  Lords  Lansdowne  and  Brougham. 
A  saddish  time,  Mr.  Rigmarole.     Yes !  but  what  then  ? 

Of  the  two  extreme  trials  of  which  Carlyle  spoke,  the 
greatest,  the  one  which  really  and  truly  was  to  shake  his 
whole  nature,  was  approaching  its  culmination.  Although 
his  mother  had  rallied  remarkably  from  her  attack  in  the 
summer,  and  was  able  to  read  and  converse  as  usual,  there 
had  been  no  essential  recovery  ;  there  was  to  be  and 
there  could  be  none.  His  mother,  whom  he  had  regarded 
with  an  affection  '  passing  the  love  of  sons,'  with  whom, 
in  spite  of,  or  perhaps  in  consequence  of,  her  profound 
Christian  piety,  he  had  found  more  in  common,  as  he 
often  said,  than  with  any  other  mortal — was  now  evidently 
about  to  be  taken  away  from  him.  A  feeling  peculiarly- 
tender  had  united  these  two.  .  .  .  Carlyle,  as  his  letters 
show,  had  been  haunted  from  his  earliest  days  by  the 
terror  that  he  must  one  day  lose  her.  She  had  watched 
over  the  workings  of  his  mind  with  passionate  solicitude : 
proud  of  his  genius,  and  alternately  alarmed  for  his  soul. 
In  the  long  evenings  when  they  had  sate  together  over  the 
fire  with  their  pipes  at  Mainhill,  he  had  half-satisfied  her 
that  he  and  she  were  one  in  heart  and  in  essentials.  His 
first  earnings,  when  a  school  usher,  were  spent  in  contrib- 
uting to  her  comforts.  When  money  came  from  Boston 
for  the  'French  Revolution,'  the  'kitlni'  instantly  sent 
'  the  auld  cat'  an  'American  mouse.'  If  she  gloried  in  his 
fame  and  greatness,  he  gloried  more  in  being  the  son  of 
the  humble  Margaret  Carlyle — and  while  she  lived,  she, 
and  only  she,  stood  between  him  and  the  loneliness  of 
which  he  so  often  and  so  passionately  complained.  No 
one  else,  perhaps,  ever  completely  understood  his  charac- 


118  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

ter ;  and  of  all  his  letters  none  are  more  tenderly  beauti- 
ful than  those  which  he  sent  to  Scotsbrig.  One  more  of 
these  has  yet  to  be  given — the  last — which  it  is  uncertain 
whether  she  was  able  to  read.  Pie  wrote  it  on  his  own 
birthday,  when  he  was  on  the  point  of  going  again  to  the 
Grange,  and  it  is  endorsed  by  him  in  his  own  latest  shak- 
ing hand,  '  My  last  letter  to  my  mother.' 

Chelsea :  December  4,  1853. 
My  dear,  good  Mother, — I  wrote  to  Jean  the  other  day  and  have 
very  little  news  to  tell  you  ;  but  I  cannot  let  this  day  pass  without 
sending  you  some  word  or  other,  were  it  never  so  insignificant. 
We  are  going  into  the  country  to-morrow,  to  the  Grange,  for  two 
weeks  or  perhaps  a  little  more,  partly  to  let  the  painters  get  done 
with  that  weary  '  room  '  of  which  you  have  heard  so  much ;  partly 
because  the  Ashburtons,  whose  house  we  visited  lately  without 
their  own  presence,  would  have  it  so,  and  Jane  thought  we  were 
bound.  She  will  go  therefore  :  and  I,  having  once  landed  her 
there,  am  to  have  liberty  to  leave  again  when  I  will.  Meanwhile 
I  have- bargained  to  be  private  all  day  in  their  big  house,  to  go  on 
with  my  work  just  as  if  at  home,  &c.  We  will  see  how  it  answers. 
I  confess  I  get  no  good  of  any  company  at  present ;  nor,  except  in 
stubbornly  trying  to  work— alas  !  too  often  in  vain — is  there  any 
sure  relief  to  me  from  thoughts  which  are  very  sad.  But  we  must 
not  '  lose  heart ; '  lose  faith — never,  never  !  Dear  old  mother, 
weak  and  sick  and  dear  to  me,  while  I  live  in  God's  creation,  what 
a  day  has  this  been  in  my  solitary  thought ;  for,  except  a  few 
words  to  Jane,  I  have  not  spoken  to  anyone,  nor,  indeed,  hardly 
seen  anyone,  it  being  dusk  and  dark  before  I  went  out — a  dim 
silent  Sabbath  day,  the  sky  foggy,  dark  with  damp,  and  a  universal 
stillness  the  consequence,  and  it  is  this  day  gone  fifty-eight 
years  that  I  was  born.  And  my  poor  mother  !  Well !  we  are  all 
in  God's  hands.  Surely  God  is  good.  Surely  we  ought  to  trust 
in  Him,  or  what  trust  is  there  for  the  sons  of  men  ?  Oh,  my  dear 
mother  !  Let  it  ever  be  a  comfort  to  you,  however  weak  you  are, 
that  you  did  your  part  honourably  and  well  while  in  strength,  and 
were  a  noble  mother  to  me  and  to  us  all.  I  am  now  myself  grown 
old,  and  have  had  various  things  to  do  and  suffer  for  so  many 
years  ;  but  there  is  nothing  I  ever  had  to  be  so  much  thankful 
for  as  for  the  mother  I  had.  That  is  a  truth  which  I  know  well, 
and  perhaps  this  day  again  it  may  be  some  comfort  to  you.     Yes, 


Margaret  Caiiyle.  119 

surely,  for  if  there  has  been  any  good  in  the  things  I  have  uttered 
in  the  world's  hearing,  it  was  your  voice  essentially  that  was  sjjeak- 
ing  through  me ;  essentially  what  you  and  my  brave  father  meant 
and  taught  me  to  mean,  this  was  the  purport  of  all  I  spoke  and 
wrote.  And  if  in  the  few  years  that  may  remain  to  me,  I  am  to  get 
any  more  written  for  the  world,  the  essence  of  it  so  far  as  it  is 
worthy  and  good,  will  still  be  yours.  May  God  reward  you, 
dearest  mother,  for  all  you  have  done  for  me  !  I  never  can.  All 
no !  but  will  think  of  it  with  gratitude  and  pious  love  so  long 
as  I  have  the  power  of  thinking.  And  I  will  pray  God's  blessing 
on  you,  now  and  always,  and  will  write  no  more  on  that  at  present, 
for  it  is  better  for  me  to  bo  silent. 

Perhaps  a  note  from  the  doctor  will  arrive  to-morrow ;  I  am 
much  obliged,  as  he  knows,  for  his  punctuality  on  that  subject. 
He  knows  there  is  none  so  interesting  to  me,  or  can  be.  Alas !  I 
know  well  he  wTites  me  the  best  \dew  he  can  take ;  but  I  see  too, 
how  utterly  frail  my  poor  mother  is,  and  how  little  he  or  any  mor- 
t£d  can  help.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  constant  solace  to  me  to  think 
he  is  near  you,  and  our  good  Jean.  Certainly  she  does  ^me  a  great 
service  in  assiduously  watching  over  you  ;  and  it  is  a  great  bless- 
ing to  us  all  that  she  is  there  to  do  such  a  duty.  As  to  my  own 
health,  I  am  almost  suriDrised  to  report  it  is  so  good.  In  spite  of 
all  these  tumblings  and  agitations,  I  really  feel  almost  better  than 
I  have  done  in  late  years  ;  certainly  not  worse  ;  and  at  this  time 
within  sight  of  sixty  it  is  strange  how  little  decay  I  feel ;  nothing 
but  my  eyesight  gone  a  very  little  ;  and  my  hope,  but  also  my  fear 
or  care  at  all,  about  this  world,  gone  a  great  deal.  Poor  Jane  is 
not  at  all  strong,  sleeps  very  ill,  &c.  Perhaps  the  fortnight  of 
fresh  air  and  change  of  scene  will  do  her  some  good.  But  she  is 
very  tough,  and  a  bit  of  good  stuff  too.  I  often  wonder  how  she 
holds  out,  and  braves  many  things  with  so  thin  a  skin.  She  is  sit- 
ting here  reading.  She  sends  her  affection  to  you  and  to  them  alL 
She  speaks  to  me  about  you  almost  daily,  and  answers  many  a 
question  and  speculation  ever  since  she  was  at  Scotsbrig.  Give 
my  love  to  Jamie,  to  Isabella,  and  them  all.  May  God's  blessing 
1)(>  on  you  all !  T.  CAiUiYiiE. 

It  conld  not  have  been  with  any  pleasure  that,  at  a  mo- 
ment when  liis  mother  was  so  manifestly  sinking,  Carlyle 
felt  liimself  called  on  to  go  again  to  the  Grange.  IIg  had 
been  at  home  only  a  month  since  ho  last  left.     But  thei*o 


120  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 

was  to  be  a  grand  gathering  of  great  London  people  there. 
The  Ashbnrtons  were  pressing,  and  he  was  under  too 
many  obligations  to  refuse.  They  went,  both  of  them, 
into  tl^e  midst  of  London  intellect  and  social  magnificence. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  was  able  to  stay  a  few  days  only,  for  the 
cock  problem  had  reached  a  crisis.  In  his  despair,  Car- 
lyle had  thonght  of  actually  buying  the  lease  of  the  house 
where  the  dreadful  creatures  were  nourished,  turning  the 
people  out  and  leaving  it  empty.  The  '  demon  fowls ' 
were  a  standing  joke  at  the  witty  Grange.  Either  he  or 
his  wife  was  required  upon  the  spot  to  make  an  arrange- 
ment. He  says  that  she  proposed  to  go ;  she  indicates 
that  the  pressure  was  on  his  side,  and  that  she  thought  it 
a  '  wildgoose  enterprise.'  ^  At  any  rate,  the  visit  which 
was  to  have  improved  her  health  was  cut  short  on  this  ac- 
count, and  she  was  packed  off  to  Chelsea.  He  continued 
on  in  the  shining  circle  till,  on  December  20,  news  came 
from  Scotsbrig  that  his  mother  was  distinctly  worse  and 
could  not  long  survive.  It  was  not  quite  clear  that  the 
danger  w^as  immediate.  He  tried  to  hope,  but  to  no  pur- 
pose. He  felt  that  he  ought  to  go  down  to  her,  at  any 
rate  that  he  ought  not  to  continue  where  he  was.  His 
hostess  consented  to  his  going ;  he  writes  as  if  he  had 
been  obliged  to  apply  for  permission.  Lady  Ashburton, 
he  says  in  one  place,  gave  him  leave.""'  In  a  letter  written 
at  the  time,  he  says,  '  Lady  A.  admitted  at  once,  when  I 
told  her  the  case,  that  I  ought  to  go  thither,  without 
doubt;  at  all  events  to  get  out  of  this  has  become  a  neces- 
sity for  me  ;  this  is  not  supportable  in  my  present  condi- 
tion.' He  hurried  to  Scotsbrig,  stopping  only  a  night  in 
London,  and  was  in  time  to  see  his  mother  once  more 
alive.  He  has  left  several  accounts  of  the  end  of  this 
admirable  woman.  That  in  his  Journal  is  the  most  con- 
cise. 

*  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  ii.,  p.  24.  2  Ibid.  p.  26. 


Death  of  Margaret  Carhjle.  121 

Journal, 
January  8,  1854. — The  stroke  has  fallen.  My  dear  old  mother 
is  gone  from  me,  and  in  the  winter  of  the  year,  confusedly  under 
darkness  of  tveather  and  of  mind,  the  stem  final  epoch — epoch  of 
old  age—m  beginning  to  unfold  itself  for  me.  I  had  gone  to  the 
Gmnge  with  Jane,  not  very  willingly ;  was  sadly  in  worthless  soli- 
tude for  most  part  passing  my  Christmas  season  there.  The  news 
from  Scotsbrig  had  long  been  bad ;  extreme  weakness,  for  there 
was  no  disease,  tlireatening  continually  for  many  months  past  to  * 
reach  its  term.  What  to  do  I  knew  not.  At  length  sliaking  aside 
my  sick  languor  and  wretched  uncertainty  I  perceived  plainly  that 
I  ought  not  to  be  there — but  I  ought  to  go  to  Scotsbrig  at  all  risks 
straightway.  This  was  on  Tuesday,  December  20  ;  on  Wednesday 
I  came  home  ;  on  Thursday  evening  set  off  northward  by  the  ex- 
press train.  The  night's  travel,  Carlisle  for  the  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  I  waited,  Kirtlebndge  at  last,  and  my  anxieties  in  the  walk 
to  Scotsbrig ;  these  things  I  shall  not  forget.  It  is  matter  of  per- 
ennial thankfulness  to  me,  and  beyond  my  desert  in  that  matter 
very  far,  that  I  found  my  dear  old  mother  still  alive ;  able  to  re- 
cognise me  with  a  faint  joy,  her  former  self  still  strangely  visible 
there  in  all  its  lineaments,  though  worn  to  the  uttermost  thread. 
The  brave  old  mother  and  the  good,  whom  to  lose  liad  been  my 
fear  ever  since  intelligence  awoke  in  me  in  this  world,  andved  now 
at  the  final  bourn.  Never  sliall  I  forget  her  wearied  eyes  that 
morning,  looking  out  gently  into  the  wintry  daylight ;  every  in- 
stant falling  together  in  sleep  and  then  opening  again.  She  had 
in  general  the  most  j^erfect  clearness  of  intellect,  courageous  com- 
l)osure,  affectionate  patience,  complete  presence  of  mind.  Dark 
clouds  of  physical  suffering,  &c.,  did  from  time  to  time  eclipse  and 
confuse ;  but  the  clear  steady  light,  gone  now  to  the  size  of  a  star^ 
as  once  it  had  l)een  a  sun,  came  always  out  victorious  again.  At 
night  on  that  Friday  she  had  forgotten  me — *  Knew  me  only  since 
the  morning.*  I  went  into  the  other  room ;  in  a  few  minutes  she 
sent  for  me  to  say  she  did  now  remember  it  all,  p,nd  knew  her 
son  Tom  as  of  old,  *  Tell  us  how  thou  sleeps '  she  said,  when  I 
took  leave  about  midnight.  *  Sleeps  ! '  Alas  she  herself  hail  lain 
in  a  sleep  of  death  for  sixteen  houi-s,  till  that  very  morning  at  six, 
when  I  was  on  the  road !  That  was  the  third  ot  such  slee})s  or  half- 
faints  lasting  for  fifteen  or  sixteen  hoi^rs.  Jane  saw  the  first  of 
them  in  August.  On  Saturday,  if  I  recollect,  her  sense  in  general 
seemed  clear,  though  her  ^ook  of  weakness  was  greater  than  ever. 


122  Carlyle\s  Life  in  London. 

Brother  Jamie  and  I  had  gone  out  to  walk  in  the  afternoon.  Ke- 
tnrning  about  dusk  we  found  her  suffering  greatly ;  want  of 
breath,  owing  to  weakness.  What  passed  from  that  time  till  mid- 
night will  never  efface  itself,  and  need  not  be  written  here.  I  never 
saw  a  mind  more  clear  and  present^  though  worn  down  now  to  the 
uttermost  and  sinking  in  the  dark  floods.  My  good  veracious  af- 
fectionate and  brave  old  mother !  I  keep  one  or  two  incidents  and 
all  the  perplexed  image  of  that  night  to  myself,  as  something  very 
precious,  singular,  and  sternly  sacred  to  me  ;  beautiful  too  in  its 
valiant  simple  worth,  and  touching  as  what  else  could  be  to  me  ? 
About  eleven  my  brother  John  ventured  on  half  a  dose  of  laud- 
anum, the  pain  of  breathing  growing  ever  worse  otherwise.  Relief 
percej)tible  in  consequence — we  sent  my  sister  Jean  to  bed — who 
had  watched  for  nights  and  months,  relieved  only  by  John  at  in- 
tei-vals.  I  came  into  the  room  where  John  was  now  watching. 
*  Here  is  Tom  come  to  bid  you  good  night,  mother,'  said  he.  She 
smiled  assent,  took  leave  of  me  as  usual.  As  I  turned  to  go  she 
said,  *  I'm  muckle  obleeged  t'  ye.'  Those  were  her  last  voluntary 
words  in  this  world.  After  that  she  spoke  no  more — slept  ever 
deeper.  Her  sleep  lasted  about  sixteen  hours.  She  lay  on  her 
back,  stirred  no  muscle.  The  face  was  as  that  of  a  statue  with 
slight  changes  of  expression.  '  Infinite  astonishment '  was  what 
one  might  have  fancied  to  read  on  it  at  one  time  ;  the  breathing 
not  very  hard  or  quick,  yet  evidently  difficult,  and  not  changing 
sensibly  in  character,  till  four  p.m.,  when  it  suddenly  fell  lower, 
paused,  again  paused,  perhaps  still  again  :  and  our  good  and  dear 
old  mother  was  gone  from  her  sorrows  and  from  us.  I  did  not 
weep  much,  or  at  all :  except  for  moments  :  but  the  sight  too,  and 
the  look  backwards  and  forwards,  was  one  that  a  far  harder  heart 
might  have  melted  under.  Farewell,  farewell !  She  was  about  84 
years  of  age,  and  could  not  with  advantage  to  any  side  remain  with 
us  longer.  Surely  it  was  a  good  Power  that  gave  us  such  a  mother ; 
and  good  though  stern  that  took  her  away  from  amid  such  grief 
and  labour  by  a  death  beautiful  to  one's  thoughts.  '  All  the  days 
of  my  appointed  time  will  I  wait  till  my  change  come.'  This  they 
often  heard  her  muttering,  and  many  other  less  frequent  pious 
texts  and  passages.  Amen,  Amen  !  Sunday,  December  25,  1853 
—a  day  henceforth,  for  ever  memorable  to  me. 

The  funeral  was  on  Thursday.  Intense  frost  had  come  on  the 
Monday  night.  I  lingered  about  Scotsbrig,  wandering  silently  in 
the  bright  hard  silent  mornings  and  afternoons,  waiting  till  all 


James  CarlyU.  123 

small  temporal  matters  were  settled ;  wliicli  they  decently  were. 
On  Monday  morning  I  went — cold  as  Siberia,  yet  a  bright  sun 
shining ;  had  a  painful  journey,  rapid  as  a  comet,  but  with  neither 
food  nor  warmth  attainable  till  after  midnight,  when  my  sad  pil- 
grimage ended. 

Since  then  I  have  been  languidly  sorting  rubbish,  very  languid, 
sad,  and  useless  every  way.  It  cannot  be  said  that  I  have  yet 
learned  this  severe  lesson  I  have  got.  I  must  try  to  leaiii  it  more 
and  more,  or  it  will  not  pass  from  me. 

To  live  for  the  shorter  or  longer  remainder  of  my  days  \^dth  the 
simple  bravery,  vemcity,  and  piety  of  her  that  is  gone  :  that  would 
be  a  right  learning  from  her  death,  and  a  right  honouring  of  her 
memory.  But  alas  all  is  yet  frozen  within  me  ;  even  as  it  is  with- 
out me  at  present,  and  I  have  made  little  or  no  way.  God  be  help- 
ful to  me  !  I  myself  am  very  weak,  confused,  fatigued,  entangled 
in  poor  worldlinesses  too.  Newspaper  paragraphs,  even  as  this  sa- 
cred and  peculiar  thing,  are  not  indifferent  to  me.  Weak  soul ! 
and  I  am  fifty-eight  years  old,  and  the  tasks  I  have  on  hand,  Fied- 
erick  &c.,  are  most  ungainly,  incongruous  -wdth  my  mood — and  the 
night  Cometh,  for  me  too  is  not  distant,  which  for  her  is  come.  I 
must  try,  I  must  try.  Poor  brother  Jack !  Will  he  do  his  Dante 
now  ?  '  For  him  also  I  am  sad  ;  and  surely  he  has  deserved  grati- 
tude in  these  last  years  from  us  all. 

James  Carlyle,  who  was  the  master  at  Scotsbrig,  was 
the  youngest  of  the  brothers.  Carlyle  told  me  that  he 
thought  his  brother  James  had  been  the  happiest  of  them 
all — happy  chiefly  in  this,  that  he  had  fallen  less  under 
his  own  influence  than  Alexander  and  John.  He  was  a 
mere  child  in  tlie  years  when  ^  Tom  was  home  from  Col- 
lege ' ;  he  had  been  educated  by  his  father  and*  motlier, 
and  had  believed  what  tliey  believed.  There  is  a  touch- 
iiijj:  mention  of  James  in  a  letter  written  during  this  sad 
time  from  Scotsbrig. 

*  Jamie  is. kind,'  Carlyle  tells  his  wife,  'and  honest  as  a  soul  can 
be ;  comes  and  sits  with  me,  or  walks  with  me  when  I  like,  goes 
gently  away  when  he  sees  I  had  rather  be  alone.' 

>  Translation  of  Dante,  part  of  which  had  been  admirably  done  by  John 
Carlyle.     He  wa«  doubting  whether  to  go  on  with  it  or  leave  it. 


124  CarlyWs  Ufe  in  London. 

He  shuddered  as  he  thought  of  his  hesitation  in  setting 
out. 

*0h,'  he  said,  *I  am  bound  to  be  for  ever  thankful  that  I  got 
here  in  time  ;  not  by  own  wisdom  either  or  by  any  worth  in  my 
own  management  of  the  affair.  Had  I  stayed  at  the  Grange  and 
received  the  news  there,  it  would  have  driven  me  half- distracted 
and  left  a  remorse  to  me  till  the  very  end  of  my  existence.' 

The  few  days  of  reflection  before  the  funeral  were  spent 
in  silence.     He  wrote  on  one  of  them  to  Erskine. 

*  I  got  here  in  time  to  be  recognised,  to  be  cheered  with  the  sa- 
cred beauty  of  a  devout  and  valiant  soul's  departure.  God  make 
me  thankful  for  such  a  mother.  God  enable  me  to  live  more 
worthily  of  her  in  the  years  I  may  still  have  left.  I  must  rally 
myself  if  I  can  for  a  new  and  sterner  final  epoch  which  I  feel  has 
now  arrived  for  me.  The  last  two  years  have  been  without  action, 
worthless  to  me  except  for  the  final  burning  away  of  things  that 
needed  to  be  burnt.' 

In  London,  when  settled  there  again,  he  lived  for  many 
weeks  in  strictest  seclusion,  working  at  his  task  or  trying 
to  work,  but  his  mind  dwelling  too  constantly  on  his  irre- 
parable loss  to  allow  him  to  make  progress. 

My  labour  (he  wrote  to  his  brother  John  on  January  14th,  1854) 
is  miserably  languid  :  the  heart  within  me  is  low  and  sad.  I  have 
kept  quite  alone,  seen  nobody  at  all.  I  think  of  our  dear  mother 
with  a  kind  of  mournful  blessedness.  Her  life  was  true,  simple, 
generous,  brave ;  her  end,  with  the  last  traces  of  these  qualities 
still  visible  in  it,  was  very  beautiful  if  very  sad  to  us.  I  would 
not  for  much  want  those  two  stern  days  at  Scotsbrig  from  my 
memory.  They  lie  consecrated  there  as  if  baptised  in  sorrow  and 
with  the  greatness  of  eternity  in  them. 

A  fortnight  later  it  was  still  the  same. 

My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  all  hung  with  hlack  in  general, 
thinking  of  what  is  gone  and  what  cannot  return  to  me.  I  hold 
my  peace  in  general  and  accept  the  decrees  of  heaven,  still  hoping 
that  some  useful  labour  may  be  again  possible  for  me  here,  which 
is  the  one  consolation  I  can  conceive  at  present. 


Notes  ill  JuaniaJ.:  125 

Towards  the  spring,  evening  visitors  were  readmitted 
into  Cheyne  Row ;  but  they  were  not  very  welcome,  and 
wore  not,  perhaps,  very  graciously  received. 

"Wo  have  a  turn  or  two  of  talk  (he  reports  on  February  10th), 
which  does  vve  little  good,  yet  is  perba^^s  better  than  flat  silence, 
perhaps  iwt.  The  other  night,  H.,  by  volunteer  appointment, 
came  to  us  ;  brought  one,  R. ,  more  than  half-drunk,  in  his  train, 
and  one  D.,  an  innocent  ingenuous  babe,  in  red  hair  and  beard, 

member  for  the borough.     R.  also  and  more  conspicuously, 

member  for  something,  is  a  Jew  of  the  deepest  type,  black  hook- 
nosed Jew,  with  tlie  mouth  of  a  shark  ;  coarse,  8|tvage,  infidel, 
hungry,  and  with  considerable  strength  of  hearty' head,  and  jaw. 
He  went  early  away.  The  rest,  to  whom  Ape  L.,  and  an  unknown 
natural  philosopher  sometimes  seen  here  with  him,  liad  accident- 
ally joined  themselves,  stayed  long.     Nichts  zu  bedeuten. 

It  was  entertaining  to  watch  the  struggle  in  Carlyle  on 
such  occasions  between  courtesy  and  veracity.  He  was 
seldom  actually  rude,  unless  to  a  great  man  like  the  Sar- 
dini^i  Minister.  But  he  was  not  skilful  in  concealing 
his  dislikes  and  his  boredoms.  His  journal  shows  a 
gradual  but  slow,  very  slow  recovery  out  of  his  long  pros- 
tration. 

Journal. 

February  28,  1854. — Not  quite  idle  ;  always  indeed  professing 
to  work  ;  but  making,  as  it  were,  no  way  at  all.  Alas  !  alas  !  In 
truth  I  am  weak  and  forlorn  to  a  degree ;  have  the  profoundest 
feeling  of  utter  loneliness  in  the  world ;  which  the  company,  *  when 
it  comes,*  of  my  fellow-creatures  rather  tends  to  aggravate  and 
strengthen  than  assuage.  I  have,  however,  or  am  getting,  a  kind 
of  sad  peace  withal,  *  renunciation,'  more  real  sui^eriority  to  vain 
wishes,  worldly  honours,  advantages,  &c.,  the  peace  that  belongs 
to  the  old.  My  Frederick  looks  as  if  it  never  would  take  sha|)e  in 
me  ;  in  fact  the  problem  is  to  burn  away  the  immense  dungheap 
of  the  18th  century  with  its  ghastly  cants,  foul,  blind  sensualities, 
cruelties  and  inanity  now  fallen  putrid,  rotting  inevitably  towards 
annihilation ;  to  destroy  and  extinguish  all  that,  having  got  to 
know  it,  and  to  know  that  it  must  be  rejected  for  evermore  ;  after 


126  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London, 

wliich  the  perennial  portion,  pretty  much  Friedrich  and  Voltaire, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  may  remain  conspicuous  and  capable  of  being 
delineated  (very  loosely  expressed  all  this  ;  does  not  fit  my 
thought  like  a  skin  ;  but,  like  an  Irish  waistcoat,  it  does  in  some 
degree) . 

Sunday  morning  last,  there  came  into  my  mind  a  vision  of  the 
old  Sunday  mornings  I  had  seen  at  Mainhill,  &c.  Poor  old  mother, 
father,  and  the  rest  of  us  bustling  about  to  get  dressed  in  time 
and  down  to  the  meeting-house  at  Ecclefechan,  Inexpressibly  sad 
to  me,  and  full  of  meaning.  They  are  gone  now,  vanished  all ; 
their  poor  bits  of  thrifty  clothes,  more  precious  to  me  than  Queen's 
or  King's  expensive  trappings,  their  pious  struggling  effort,  their 
'  little  life,'  it  is  all  away.  It  has  all  melted  into  the  still  sea  ;  it 
was  *  rounded  with  a  sleep.'  So  with  all  things.  Nature  and  this 
big  universe  in  all  corners  of  it  show  nothing  else.  Time  !  Death  ! 
All-devouring  Time  !  This  thought,  *£h:e2m^  omnes,' and  how  the 
generations  are  like  crops  of  grass,  temporary^  very,  and  all  van^ 
ishes,  as  it  were  an  apparition  and  a  ghost ;  these  things,  though 
half  a  century  old  in  me,  possess  my  mind  as  they  never  did  be- 
fore. On  the  whole  I  have  a  strange  interior  tomb  life,  and  dwell 
in  secret  among  scenes  and  contemplations  which  I  do  not  sjDeak 
of  to  anybody.  My  mother  !  my  good  heavy-laden  dear  anc^brave 
and  now  lost  mother !  The  thought  that  I  shall  never  see  her 
more  with  these  eyes  gives  a  strange  painful  flash  into  me  many 
times  when  I  look  at  that  poor  portrait  I  have  of  her.  '  Like 
Ulysses,'  as  I  say,  I  converse  with  the  shade  of  my  mother  and 
sink  out  of  all  company  and  light  common  talk  into  that  grand 
element  of  sorrow  and  eternal  stillness.  God  is  great.  I  will  not 
ask  or  guess  [know  no  man  ever  could  or  can)  what  He  has  ap- 
pointed for  His  poor  creatures  of  the  earth  ;  a  right  and  good  and 
wise  appointment,  it  full  surely  is.  Let  me  look  to  it  with  pious 
manfulness,  without  either  hope  or  fear  that  were  excessive.  Ex- 
cessive ?  Alas  !  how  veiy  small  it  is  in  me  ;  really  inconsiderable, 
beaten  out  of  me  by  '  many  stripes,'  pretty  continual  for  these  fifty 
years,  till  I  feel  as  if  fairly  broken  and  pounded  in  the  mortar  ;  and 
have  oftenest  no  prayer  except  Eest,  rest ;  let  me  sleep  then  if 
that  must  be  my  doom  !  For  as  God  lives  I  am  weary,  very  weary, 
and  the  way  of  this  world  does  not  suit  me  at  all.  Such  changes 
grow  upon  the  spirit  of  a  man.  When  I  look  back  thirty  years  and 
read  my  feelings,  it  is  very  strange.  Oh  pious  mother!  kind, 
good,  brave,  and  tmthful  soul  as  I  have  ever  found,  and  more 


Notes  in  Journal,  127 

than  I  have  ever  elsewhere  found  in  this  world,  yonr  poor  Toni, 
long  out  of  his  schooldays  now,  has  fallen  ver}'  lonely,  very  lame 
and  broken  in  this  pilgrimage  of  his  ;  and  you  cannot  help  him  or 
cheer  him  by  a  kind  word  any  more.  From  your  grave  in  Eccle- 
fechan  kirkyard  yonder  you  bid  him  trust  in  God,  and  that  also 
he  will  try  if  he  can  understand,  and  do.  The  conquest  of  the 
world  and  of  death  and  hell  does  verily  yet  lie  in  that,  if  one  can 
undei-stand  and  do  it. 


CHAPTER    XXIL 

A.D.  1854.    iET.  59. 

Crimean  war — Louis  Napoleon — The  sound-proof  room — Dreams — 
Death  of  John  Wilson — Character  of  Wilson — A  journal  of  a 
day — The  economies  of  Cheyne  Row — Carlyle  finances — '  Bud- 
get of  a  Femme  Incomprise.* 

The  year  1854  was  spent  almost  entirely  in  London. 
JS'either  Carlyle  nor  liis  wife  was  absent  for  more  than  a 
day  or  two :  she  in  indifferent  health,  to  which  she  was 
stoically  resigning  herself ;  he  '  in  dismal  continual  wrestle' 
with  '  Frederick,'  the  '  unexecntable  book,'  and  rather  '  in 
bilious  condition,'  which  meant  what  we  know.  The  work 
which  he  had  undertaken  was  immense ;  desperate  as  that 
of  the  girl  in  tlie  fairy  tale  with  the  pile  of  tangled  silks 
before  her ;  and  no  beneficent  godmother  to  help  him 
through  with  it ;  and  the  gea  of  life,  the  spring  and  fire 
of  earlier  years,  gone  out  of  him.  He  allowed  what  was 
going  on  in  the  world  to  distract  him  as  little  as  possible  ; 
but  the  sounds  of  such  things  broke  in  upon  him,  and 
were  as  unwelcome  as  the  cocks  had  been.  The  Crimean 
war  was  in  prospect,  and  the  newspapers  were  crowing  as 
loud  as  the  Demon  Fowls. 

Journal. 
Spring,  1854. — Eussian  war  ;  soldiers  marching  off,  &c.  Never 
such  enthusiasm  seen  among  the  population.  Cold  I  as  a  very 
stone  to  all  that ;  seems  to  me  privately  I  have  hardly  seen  a  mad- 
der business.  1696  was  battle  of  Zeutha  on  Theiss  ;  Eugene's  task 
in  this  world  to  break  the  backbone  of  Turk.  A  lazy,  ugly,  sen- 
sual, dark  fanatic,  that  Turk,  whom  we  have  now  had  for  400 


The  Cnmecm   Wwr,  129 

^rears.  I,  for  my  own  private  part,  would  not  buy  the  continuance 
of  him  there  at  the  i*ate  of  sixpence  a  century.  Let  him  go  when- 
ever he  can,  stay  no  longer  with  all  my  heart.  It  will  be  a  beau- 
tifuUer,  not  an  uglier,  that  will  come  in  his  place  ;  uglier  I  should 
not  know  where  to  look  for  under  the  sky  at  present.  Then  as  to 
Russian  increase  of  strength,  &c.  Really,  I  would  wait  till  Russia 
meddled  with  me  before  I  drew  sword  to  stop  his  increase  of 
strength.  It  is  the  idle  population  of  editors,  &c.,  that  have  done 
all  this  in  England.  One  perceives  clearly  the  ministers  go  for- 
ward in  it  against  their  will.  Indeed,  I  have  seen  no  rational  person 
who  is  not  privately  very  much  inclined  to  be  of  my  own  opinion  ; 
all  fools  and  loose-spoken  inexperienced  persons  being  of  the 
other.  It  is  veiy  disgraceful  for  any  '  ministry '  or  government ; 
but  such  is  the  fate  and  curse  of  all  ministries  here  at  present,  in- 
evitably. Poor  souls  !  What  could  the  ministry  do  after  all  ?  To 
attend  to  their  home  affairs,  fortify  their  own  coasts,  encourage 
their  own  fisheries  (for  new  seamen),  regulate  their  own  popula- 
tion into  or  toward  proper  manliness  of  spirit  and  position,  and 
capability  of  self-defence,  and  so  bid  defiance  to  all  the  earth,  as 
England  peculiarly  might — to  do  this,  or  any  portion  of  this,  is  far 
from  them ;  therefore  they  must  do  the  other  thing.  Better  speed 
to  them ! 

The  French  alliance,  into  which  we  were  drawn  by  the 
Crimean  affair,  was  not,  in  Carlyle's  opinion,  a  compensat- 
ing circumstance — very  much  the  reverse.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1848,  a  weak  repetition  of  1793,  had  been  followed 
by  a  corresponding  Napoleonic  Empire,  a  parody  on  the 
first.  Carlyle  had  known  Louis  Xapoleon  in  England. 
He  had  watched  him  stepping  to  the  throne  through  per- 
jury and  massacre,  and  had  been  indignant  and  ashamed 
for  the  nation  who  could  choose  or  tolerate  at  its  head  an 
adventurer  unrecommended  by  a  single  virtue.  From  the 
first,  he  was  certain  that  for  such  a  man  no  good  end  was 
to  be  looked  for.  It  was  with  a  feeling  of  disgust  that  he 
found  the  English  newspapers  now  hailing  the  *  scandalous 
Copper  Captain,'  as  he  called  him,  as  the  saviour  of  Eu- 
ropean order,  and  a  fit  ally  for  England.  It  was  with 
something  more  than  disgust  that  he  heard  of  tliis  person 
Vol.  IV. -9 


130  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

paying  a  visit  to  the  Queen  of  England,  and  being  wel- 
comed by  her  as  a  friend  and  brother  sovereign.  The 
war  and  its  consequences  and  circumstances  he  thrust  out 
of  his  mind,  to  the  utmost  possible  distance,  and  thought 
of  other  things.  To  one  of  these,  '  the  eighth  wonder  of 
the  world,'  which  had  sprung  into  being  out  of  the  Great 
Exhibition,  tlie  glass  palace  of  Sydenham,  he  was  less  in- 
tolerant than  might  have  been  expected.  At  the  end  of 
April  he  spent  a  Saturday  and  Sunday  with  the  Ashbur- 
tons  at  Addiscombe. 

On  Sunday  (he  tells  his  brother)  we  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
Crystal  Palace,  which  is  but  some  two  miles  off,  a  monstrous 
mountain  of  glass  building  on  tlie  top  of  Sydenham  Hill,  veiy 
conspicuous  from  Cheyne  Walk  here.  Innumerable  objects  of 
Art  in  it,  whole  acres  of  Egyptian  monsters,  and  many  really  good 
copies  of  classical  and  modern  sculptui'e,  which  well  deserve  ex- 
amination one  day.  The  living  visitors  not  so  very  numerous  in 
so  huge  an  edifice— probably  not  above  200 — were  almost  all  Jews. 
Outside  were  as  many  thousands  of  the  Christian  persuasion — or 
rather,  Christian  Cockney — unable  to  get  in.  The  whole  matter 
seemed  to  me  to  be  the  very  highest  flight  of  Transcendental 
Cockneyism  yet  known  among  mankind.  One  saw  '  Kegardless  of 
expense '  written  on  every  fibre  of  it,  and  written  with  the  best 
Cockney  judgment,  yet  still  with  an  essentially  Cockney  one.  Re- 
gardless of  expense !     That  was  the  truly  grand  miracle  of  it. 

At  Cheyne  Row  the  great  feature  was  the  completion 
of  the  '  sound-proof '  room,  into  which  he  '  was  whirled 
aloft  by  the  angry  elements.'  It  was  built  above  the 
highest  story,  the  roof  being,  as  it  were,  lifted  over  it, 
'  and  was  equal  in  size  to  the  whole  area  on  which  the 
house  stood.  A  second  w^all  was  constructed  inside  the 
outer  one,  with  a  space  between  to  deaden  external  noise. 
There  were  doors  in  the  inner  wall,  and  windows  in  the 
outer,  w4iich  could  be  opened  for  ventilation,  but  the  room 
itself  was  lighted  from  above.  It  had  no  outlook  except 
to  the  sky.     Here  Carlyle  spent  his  working  hours,  cut 


7%d  Soundyproof  Room,  131 

off  from  everyone — *  whirled  aloft,'  as  he  said ;  angry  at 
the  fato  which  had  driven  him  into  such  a  refuge,  and 
finding  in  it,  when  finished,  the  faults  inseparable  from 
all  human  contrivances.  But  he  did  admit  that  'the  light 
was  superb,'  that  all  *  softer  sounds  were  killed  on  the 
road  to  him,  and  that  of  sharp  sounds  scarce  the  thirtieth 
part  could  penetrate.'  The  cocks  had  been  finally  abol- 
ished, jmrchased  out  of  existence  by  a  hi.  note  and  Mrs. 
Carlyle's  diplomacy.  Thus  they  *  were  quiet  as  mice,'  he 
working  with  all  his  might,  dining  out  nowhere,  save  once 
with  the  Proctors,  to  meet  Dickens,  and  'finding  it  the 
most  hideous  evening  he  had  had  for  years.'  Under  these 
conditions,  '  Frederick '  ouglit  to  have  made  progress,  if  it 
could  progress  at  all.     But  it  seemed  as  if  it  could  not. 

Apinl,  1854. — No  way  made  with  my  book,  nor  like  to  be  made. 
I  am  in  a  heavj',  stupefying  state  of  health,  ioo,  and  have  no  ca- 
pacity of  grasping  the  big  chaos  that  lies  round  me,  and  reducing 
it  to  order.  Order  !  Reducing  !  It  is  like  compelling  the  grave 
to  give  up  its  dead,  were  it  rightly  done,  and  I  am  in  no  capacity 
for  working  such  a  miracle.  Yet  all  things  point  to  work — tell  me 
sternly  enough  that  except  in  work  there  is  simply  no  hope  for  me 
at  all,  no  good  that  can  now  come  to  me. 

I  read  old  German  books,  dull  as  stupidity  itself — ^nay,  superan- 
nuated stupidity — gain  with  labour  the  dreariest  glimpses  of  unim- 
portant, extinct  human  things  in  that  region  of  the  world ;  but 
when  I  begin  operating ;  how  to  reduce  tliat  widespread  black 
desert  of  Brandenburg  sand  to  a  small  human  garden — alas ! 
alas!  But  let  me  not  spend  time  here  making  matters  ttorse. 
Surely  now  I  am  at  the  bottom  of  the  wheel.  I  dream  horribly — 
the  finiit  of  incurable  biliousness  :  waste  scenes  of  solitary  desola- 
tion, gathered  from  Craigenputtock,  as  I  now  perceive,  but  tenfold 
iutensafed;  endless  uplands  of  scraggy  moors,  with  gnarls  of  lich- 
ened  crag  of  a  stem  ugliness,  for  always  I  am  quite  a  hermit  there 
too— fit  to  go  into  Dante's  ♦  Inferno  ; '  with  other  visions  less  si^eak- 
able,  of  a  similar  ty|)o.  Eveiy  vision,  I  find,  is  the  express  sym- 
bol and  suitable  representative  of  the  mood  of  mind  then  possess- 
ing me.    Also,  it  is  sometimes  weeks  after  the  actual  dream,  as  of 


132  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

these  Dantesqne  Galloway  moors,  when  some  other  analogous 
dream  or  circumstance  first  brings  them  to  my  waking  recollec- 
tion— a  thing  rather  curious  to  me.  But  nearly  all  my  dreams  in 
this  world  have  come  from  bodily  conditions  of  the  nerves,  I  think  ; 
and  ninety -nine  out  of  every  hundred  have  been  ugly  and  painful, 
very  stupid  too,  and  weak,  and,  on  the  whole,  by  no  means  worth 
having,  could  one  have  avoided  them.  For  the  rest,  I  find  noth- 
ing sublime  in  the  act  of  dreaming,  nor  even  anything  very 
strange.  Shut  your  eyes  at  any  time,  there  will  be  a  phantasma- 
gory  of  thoughts  and  images  begin  parading  in  unbroken  series 
through  your  head.  To  sleep  is  but  to  shut  your  eyes  and  outer 
senses  a  little  better.  I  have  an  impression  that  one  always 
d7'eams,  but  that  only  in  cases  where  the  nerves  are  disturbed  by 
bad  health,  which  produces  light,  imperfect  sleep,  do  they  start 
into  such  relief — call  it  agony  and  antagony — as  to  force  them- 
selves on  our  w^aking  consciousness.  On  the  whole,  the  miracle 
of  dreams  was  never  much  of  a  miracle  to  me,  and  now,  this  long 
while,  none  at  all,  beyond  what  everything  is. 

Advancing  years  have  one  inseparable  accompaniment, 
painful  if  we  like  to  make  it  so,  or  soft  and  sad,  as  an  or- 
dinance of  nature — a  thing  wliich  Jias  to  be,  and  must  be 
so  accepted.  Eacli  season  takes  away  witli  it  more  and 
more  of  the  friends  whom  we  have  known  and  loved,  cut- 
ting one  by  one  the  strings  wliich  attach  us  to  our  present 
lives,  and  lightening  the  reluctance  with  which  we  recog- 
nise our  own  time  approaching.  Anyone  at  all  that  we 
have  personally  known  has  a  friendly  aspect  when  we  hear 
that  he  is  dead.  Even  if  he  has  done  us  an  ill  turn,  he 
cannot  do  it  again.  We  forget  the  injuries  we  have 
received,  because,  after  all,  they  did  not  seriously  hurt  us ; 
we  remember  the  injuries  which  we  have  done,  because 
they  are  past  remedy.  With  the  dead,  whatever  they 
were,  we  only  desire  to  be  at  peace.  Between  John  Wil- 
son and  Carlyle  there  had  never  been  any  cordial  relation. 
They  had  met  in  Edinburgh  in  the  old  days;  on  Carlyle's 
part  there  had  been  no  backwardness,  and  Wilson  was  not 
unconscious  of  Carlyle's  extraoiKiinary  powers.      But  iie 


Death  of  Johi   Wilson.  133 

had  been  shy  of  Carlyle,  and  Carlyle  had  resented  it,  and 
now  tliis  April  the  news  came  that  Wilson  was  gone,  and 
Carlyle  had  to  write  his  epitaph. 

Journal. 
April  29,  1854.-— John  Wilson  dead  at  Edinburgh  abont  ten  days 
ago.  Apoplexy  bad  gradually  cut  him  out  of  the  lists  of  the  active, 
years  ago,  and  for  six  months  had  quite  broken  his  memoiy,  &c., 
and  rendered  recoveiy  hopeless.  I  knew  his  figure  well ;  remem- 
ber well  first  seeing  him  in  Princes  Street  on  a  bright  April  after- 
noon— probably  1814 — exactly  forty  years  ago.  Princes  Street,  on 
bright  afternoons,  was  then  the  promenade  of  Edinburgh,  and  I, 
as  a  student,  had  gone  among  the  others  to  see  the  KoKac  and  the 
KoXoi ;  one  Campbell,  some  years  older  than  myself,  was  walking 
with  me  in  the  crowd.  A  tall  ruddy  figure,  with  plenteous  blonde 
hair,  with  bright  blue  eyes,  fixed,  as  if  in  haste  towards  some  dis- 
tant object,  strode  rapidly  along,  clearing  the  press  to  the  left  of 
us,  close  by  the  railings,  near  where  Blackwood's  shop  now  is. 
Westward  he  in  haste  ;  we  slowly  eastward.  Campbell  whispered 
me,  'That  is  Wilson  of  the  "  Isle  of  Palms," '  which  poem  I  had 
not  read,  being  then  quite  mathematical,  scientific,  «fec.,  for  extra- 
neous reasons,  as  I  now  see  them  to  have  been.  The  broad- 
shouldered  stately  bulk  of  the  man  stnick  me ;  his  flashing  eye, 
copious,  dishevelled  head  of  hair,  and  rapid,  unconcerned  prog- 
ress, like  that  of  a  plough  through  stubble.  I  really  liked  him, 
but  only  from  the  distance,  and  thought  no  more  of  him.  It  must 
have  been  fourteen  years  later  before  I  once  saw  his  figure  again, 
and  began  to  have  some  distant  straggling  acquaintance  of  a  per- 
sonal kind  with  him.  Glad  could  I  have  been  to  be  better  and 
more  familiarly  acquainted  ;  but  though  I  liked  much  in  him,  and 
he  somewhat  in  me,  it  would  not  do.  He  was  always  very  kind  to 
me,  but  seemed  to  have  a  feeling  I  should — could — not  become 
wholly  his,  in  which  he  was  right,  and  that  on  other  terms  he  could 
not  have  me  ;  so  we  let  it  so  remain,  and  for  many  yeara — indeed, 
even  after  quitting  Edinburgh  I  had  no  acquaintance  with  him ; 
occasionally  got  symptoms  of  his  ill-humour  with  me — ink-spurts 
in  *  Blackwood,*  read  or  heard  of,  which  I,  in  a  surly,  silent  man- 
ner, strove  to  consider  flattering  rather.  Poor  Wilson !  I  can- 
not remember  ever  to  have  at  all  much  respected  his  judgment,  or 
depth  of  sincere  insight  into  anything  whatever  ;  and  by  this  time 
I  was  abroad  in  fields  quite  foreign  to  him,  where  his  word  was  of 


134:  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London, 

less  and  less  avail  to  me.  In  London,  indeed,  I  seldom  or  never 
heard  any  talk  of  him.      I  never  read  his  blustering,  drunken 

*  Noctes '  after  Gordon  in  Edinburgh  ceased  to  bring  them  to  me. 
We  lived  apart,  as  in  different  centuries  ;  though,  to  say  the  truth, 
I  always  loved  Wilson — really  rather  loved  him,  and  could  have 
fancied  a  most  strict  and  very  profitable  friendship  between  us  in 
different,  happier  circumstances.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  It  was 
not  the  way  of  this  poor  epoch,  nor  a  possibility  of  the  century  we 
lived  in.  One  had  to  bid  adieu  to  it  therefore.  Wilson  had  much 
nobleness  of  heart,  and  many  traits  of  noble  genius,  but  the  central 
tie-beam  seemed  always  wanting  ;  very  long  ago  I  perceived  in  him 
the  most  irreconcilable  contradictions,  Toryism  with  sansculottism  ; 
Methodism  of  a  sort  with  total  incredulity ;  a  noble,  loyal,  and 
religious  nature,  not  s/ron^  enough  to  vanquish  the  perverse  element 
it  is  born  into.  Hence  a  being  all  split  into  i)recipitous  chasms 
and  the  wildest  volcanic  tumults  ;  rocks  overgrown,  indeed,  with 
tropical  luxuriance  of  leaf  and  flower,  but  knit  together  at  the  bot- 
tom— that  was  my  old  figure  of  speech — only  by  an  ocean — of 
whisky  punch.  On  these  terms  nothing  can  be  done.  Wilson 
seemed  to  me  always  by  far  the  most  gifted  of  all  our  literary  men, 
either  then  or  still ;  and  yet  intrinsically  he  has  written  nothing 
that  can  endure.  The  central  gift  was  wanting.  Adieu !  adieu  ! 
oh,  noble,  ill-starred  brother!  Who  shall  say  I  am  not  myself 
farther  wrong,  and  in  a  more  hopeless  course  and  case,  though  on 
the  opposite  side.  .  .  .  Wilson  spoke  always  in  a  curious  dia- 
lect, full  of  humour  and  ingenuity,  but  with  an  uncomfortable 
wavering  between  jest  and  earnest,  as  if  it  were  his  interest  and 
unconscious  purpose  to  cwcceal  his  real  meaning  in  most  things. 
So  far  as  I  can  recollect,  he  was  once  in  my  house  (Comely  Bank, 
with  a  testimonial,  poor  fellow  !)  and  I  once  in  his,  De  Quincey, 
&c.,  a  little  while  one  afternoon.  One  night,  at  Gordon's,  I 
supped  with  him,  or  witnessed  his  supper — ten  or  twelve  tumblers 
of  whisky  punch,  continued  till  the  daylight  shone  in  on  him 
and  us  ;  and  such  a  firework  of  wildly  ingenious — I  should  say 
volcanically  vivid — hearty,  humorous,  and  otherwise  remarkable, 
entertaining,  and  not  venerable  talk  (Wordsworth,  Dugald  Stewart, 
many  men,  as  well  as  things,  came  in  for  a  lick),  as  I  never  listened 
to  before  or  since.  We  walked  homewards  together  through  the 
summer  sunrise,  I  remember  well.  Good  Wilson  !  Poo;*  Wilson  ! 
That  must  be  twenty- six  years  ago.     I  know  not  if  among  all  his 

*  friends '  he  has  left  one  who  feels  more  recognisingly  what  ha 


Death  of  John    Wilsoiu  135 

was,  and  how  ti*agical  his  life  when  seemingly  most  successful, 
than  I  now.  Adieu  to  him,  good,  grand,  mined  soul,  that  never 
could  be  great,  or,  indeed,  be  anything.  This  present  is  a  ruinous 
and  ruining  world. 

In  the  obituary  of  this  spring  the  name  of  another 
Scotchman  appeared^-of  more  national  temperament — on 
■whom  Carlyle  also  leaves  a  few  words. 

A  few  days  later  (Wednesday  last)  there  died  also  at  Edinburgh 
liord  Cockburn,  a  figure  from  my  early  years :  Jeffrey's  biog- 
rapher and  friend ;  in  all  respects  the  converse  or  contrast  of 
"Wilson — rustic  Scotch  sense,  sincerity,  and  humour,  all  of  the 
practical  Scotch  type,  versus  the  Keopoetical  Wordsworthian, 
Coleridgean,  extremely  chaotic  *  Church  of  the  Future,'  if  Cal- 
vary, Parnassus,  and  whisky  punch  can  ever  be  supposed  capable 
of  growing  into  anything  but  a  dungheap  of  the  future  or  past. 
Cockburn,  small,  splid,  and  genuine,  was  by  much  the  whole- 
somer  product ;  a  bright,  cheery-voiced,  hazel-eyed  man ;  a 
Scotch  dialect  with  plenty  of  good  logic  in  it,  and  of  practical 
sagacity.  Veracious,  too.  A  gentleman,  I  should  say,  and  per- 
fectly in  the  Scotch  type,  perhaps  the  very  last  of  that  peculiar 
species. 

Carlyle's  own  special  work  at  this  time  was  confined 
almost  to  reading  books.  The  little  that  he  composed 
was  unsatisfactory,  and  tlie  entries  in  his  journal,  which 
were  unusually  numerous  in  the  period  of  forced  in- 
activity, were  at  once  an  occupation  and  a  relief.  When 
once  he  was  launched  upon  his  enterprise,  he  had  little 
leisure  for  self -reflection.  A  long  vacant  interval  was 
soon  to  follow  in  the  journal ;  here  is  one  more  passage 
from  it — one  more  open  window  into  his  inner  soul : — 

Journal. 

June  15,  1854. — Being  to  all  appearance  just  about  the  nadir  in 
my  affairs  at  present,  solitary,  without  any  human  being  to  whom 
I  can  with  profit  communicate  myself,  and  totally  unable,  from 
illness,  Ac,  to  got  any  hold  of  the  ugly  chaos,  wide  as  the  world, 
which  I  am  called  to  subdue  into  the  form  of  trork  done,  I  rushed 
out  yesterday  and  took  a  violent,  long,  fatiguing  walk  into  the 


136  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

sunny  precincts  of  Tooting,  &c.,  that  at  least  I  might  be  quite 
alone  with  my  unbeautiful  self  and  my  ditto  affairs.  A  beautiful, 
soft,  bright  day  ;  the  sky  unusually  clear,  moist  clouds  floating 
about  upon  the  wind  far  enough  aloft,  and  the  sun  shining  out 
from  time  to  time.  Sitting  silent  on  Wandsworth  Common,  re- 
mote amid  the  furze  bushes,  I  said,  *  Suppose  we  write  a  journal 
of  a  week?  the  time  of  acti  lahores  may  once  again  come,  in  spite 
of  all  appearances  to  the  contraiy,  and  then  it  will  be  pleasant  to 
look  back.'  I  did  not  much  entertain  the  project,  nor  at  this  time 
am  I  clear  to  do  it.  Here,  however,  is  yesterday : — Wrote  some 
business  notes  invitisshnd  Minerva  after  breakfast ;  had  lost  the 
little  dog,  &c.,  who,  however,  was  found  about  noon.  Then  ex- 
amined the  scribble  I  had  been  doing  about  Jiilicli  and  Berg ; 
Preussen,  &c.  Totally  without  worth  !  Decided  to  run  out,  as 
above  said.  Out  at  half -past  one  p.m.  ;  return  towards  five. 
Asleep  on  the  sofa  before  dinner  at  half -past  five  ;  take  my  '  Schlos- 
ser,'  vol.  4 ;  can  do  little  at  it  till  tea.  Not  a  bad  book,  though 
very  crabbed  and  lean.  Brother  John '  enters  at  eight ;  gossip 
with  him  till  nine ;  then  out  to  escort  him  home,  getting  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  of  walking  to  myself  withal.  Had  refused  the 
Lowe  soi7'ee  before.  Jane  poorly  ;  in  a  low  way  for  some  days 
back.  Kead  till  one  a.m.,  she  soon  leaving  me.  To  bed  then, 
having  learned  little ;  how  little !  To-day  I  am  at  my  desk 
again  ;  intend  to  trj  Liegnitz  and  Silesian  matters.  Small  hoj^e 
there.  My  eyes  are  very  dim;  bad  light  (from  sky  direct), 
though  abundant.  Chiefly  the  state  of  liver,  I  suppose,  which  in- 
deed in  itself  and  its  effects  is  beyond  description.  Have  taken  to 
iron  pens ;  compelled  to  it  by  the  ever-fluctuating  *  cheap  and 
nasty '  system  which  has  prevailed  in  regard  to  paper  and  ink 
everywhere  for  twenty  years  past,  which  system,  worse  to  me  al- 
most than  the  loss  of  an  arm,  not  to  mention  money  at  all,  may 
the  Devil  confound,  as  indeed  he  does.  Basta  !  Basta  !  Lieg- 
nitz itself  will  be  better  than  that. 

So  far  Carlyle  on  himself  and  his  affairs.  I  will  now 
add  a  piece  of  writing  of  his  wife's,  which  throws  light  on 
the  domestic  economies  of  Cheyne  Row,  and  shows  how 
life  was  carried  on  there,  with  what  skill,  with  what  thrift, 
under  what  conditions,  personal  and  material.     Her  let- 

'  John  Carlyle  had  come  with  his  wife  to  live  in  London.    She  died  tragi- 
cally two  4BonthB. later  ia  her  ^&t  coafiuement. 


The  Economies  of  L'ln.yu<i  Row.  137 

ters  indirectly  tell  much,  but  this  particular  composition 
is  directly  addressed  to  that  special  subject.  There  was  a 
discussion  some  years  ago  in  the  newspapers  whether  two 
people  with  the  habits  of  a  lady  and  a  gentleman  could 
live  together  in  London  on  300^.  a  year.  Mrs.  CarJyle, 
who  often  laughed  about  it  while  it  was  going  on,  will 
answer  the  question.  Miss  Jewsbury  says  that  no  one 
who  visited  the  Carlyles  could  tell  whether  they  were 
poor  or  rich.  There  were  no  signs  of  extravagance,  but 
also  none  of  poverty.  The  drawing-room  arrangements 
were  exceptionally  elegant.  The  furniture  was  simple, 
but  solid  and  handsome ;  everything  was  scrupulously 
clean  ;  everything  good  of  its  kind ;  and  there  was  an  air 
of  ease,  as  of  a  household  living  within  its  means.  Mrs. 
Carlyle  was  well  dressed  always.  Her  admirable  taste 
would  make  the  most  of  inexpensive  materials ;  but  the 
materials  themselves  were  of  the  very  best.  Carlyle  him- 
self generally  kept  a  horse.  They  travelled,  they  visited, 
they  were  always  generous  and  open-handed.  They  had 
their  house  on  easy  terms.  The  rent,  which  when  they 
came  first  was  30^.  a  year,  I  think  was  never  raised — out 
of  respect  for  Carlyle's  character  ;  but  it  had  many  rooms 
in  it,  which,  because  they  could  not  bear  to  have  them 
otherwise,  were  maintained  in  the  best  condition.  There 
w^as  much  curiosity  among  their  friends  to  know  how 
their  establishment  was  supported.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had 
150/.  a  year  from  Craigenputtock.  He  himself,  in  a  late 
calculation,  had  set  down  his  average  income  from  his 
books  at  another  150/.  For  several  years  before  the  time 
at  which  we  have  now  arrived  he  had  published  little 
which  materially  added  to  this.  There  was  a  fixed  annual 
demand  for  his  works,  but  not  a  large  one.  The  '  Crom- 
well '  was  a  large  book,  and  had  gone  through  three 
editions.  I  do  not  know  precisely  how  much  he  had 
received    from  it ;    perhaps    1,500/.      The    *  Latter-day 


138  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Pamphlets'  had  produced  little  beyond  paying  their  ex- 
penses. The  *  Life  of  Sterling '  was  popular,  but  that  too 
only  in  a  limited  circle.  Carlyle  was  thrifty,  but  never 
penurious  ;  he  gave  away  profusely  in  his  own  family,  and 
was  liberal  beyond  his  means  elsewhere.  He  had  saved, 
I  think,  about  2,000Z.  in  all,  which  was  lying  at  interest  in 
Dumfries  bank,  and  this  was  all.  Thus  his  entire  income 
at  this  time  could  not  have  exceeded  400Z.,  if  it  was  as 
much.  His  German  tour  had  been  expensive.  The  new 
room  had  cost  ITOZ.  The  cost  of  living  was  increasing 
through  the  rise  in  prices,  which  no  economy  could  guard 
against,  and  though  they  had  but  one  servant  the  house- 
hold books  mounted  disagreeably.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  not 
wishing  to  add  to  her  husband's  troubles,  had  as  far  as 
possible  kept  her  anxieties  to  herself.  Indeed,  Carlyle 
was  like  most  husbands  in  this  matter,  and  was  inclined  to 
be  irritable  when  spoken  to  about  it.  But  an  explanation 
at  last  became  necessary,  and  the  humorous  acidity  of  tone 
with  which  she  entered  on  it  shows  that  she  had  borne 
much  before  she  presented  her  statement.  It  is  dated 
February  12,  1855,  and  is  endorsed  by  Carlyle  *  Jane's 
Missive  on  the  Budget,'  with  a  note  appended. 

The  enclosed  was  read  with  great  laughter  ;  had  been  found  ly- 
ing on  my  table  as  I  returned  out  of  the  frosty  garden  from  smok- 
ing. Debt  is  already  paid  off.  Quarterly  income  to  be  58/. 
henceforth,  and  all  is  settled  to  poor  Goody's  heart's  content.  The 
piece  is  so  clever  that  I  cannot  just  yet  find  in  my  heart  to  burn  it, 
as  perhaps  I  ought  to  do.  T.  C. 

Budget  of  a  Femme  Incomprise. 

I  don't  choose  to  speak  again  on  the  money  question  !  The  *  re- 
plies '  from  the  Noble  Lord  are  unfair  and  unkind,  and  little  to 
the  purpose.  When  you  tell  me  '  I  pester  your  life  out  about 
money,'  that  '  your  soul  is  sick  with  hearing  about  it,'  that  '  I  had 
better  make  the  money  I  have  serve,'  '  at  all  rates,  hang  it,  let  you 
alone  of  it ' — all  that  I  call  perfectly  unfair,  the  reverse  of  kind, 
and  tending  to  nothing  but  disagreement.    If  I  were  greedy  or 


TJie  Economies  of  Cheyne  Bow.  139 

extravagant  or  a  bad  manager,  you  would  be  justified  in  *  staving 
me  off  '  with  loud  words  ;  but  you  cannot  say  that  of  me  (what- 
ever else) — cannot  think  it  of  me.  At  least,  I  am  sure  that  I 
never  *  asked  for  more  '  from  you  or  anyone,  not  even  from  my  own 
mother,  in  all  my  life,  aad  that  through  six  and  twenty  years  I 
have  kept  house  for  you  at  more  or  less  cost  according  to  given 
circumstances,  but  always  on  less  than  it  costs  the  generality  of 
people  living  in  the  same  style.  What  I  should  have  expected  you 
to  say  rather  would  have  been  :  *  My  dear,  you  must  be  dreadfully 
hampered  in  your  finances,  and  dreadfully  anxious  and  unhappy 
about  it,  and  quite  desperate  of  making  it  do,  since  you  are  "  ask- 
ing for  more."  Make  me  understand  the  case,  then.  I  can  and 
will  help  you  out  of  that  sordid  suffering  at  least,  either  by  giving 
you  more,  if  that  be  found  prudent  to  do,  or  by  reducing  our 
wants  to  within  the  present  means.'  That  is  the  sort  of  thing  you 
would  have  said  liad  you  been  a  perfect  man ;  so  I  suppose  you  are 
not  a  perfect  man.  Then,  instead  of  crying  in  my  bed  half  the 
night  after,  I  would  have  explained  my  budget  to  you  in  peace 
and  confidence.  But  now  I  am  driven  to  explain  it  on  pai^er  *  in  a 
state  of  mind;*  driven,  for  I  cannot,  it  is  not  in  my  nature  to 
live  •  entangled  in  the  details,'  and  I  will  not.  I  would  sooner 
hang  myself,  though  *  pestering  you  about  money '  is  also  more 
repugnant  to  me  than  you  dream  of. 

You  don't  understand  why  the  allowance  which  sufficed  in 
former  yeai-s  no  longer  suffices.  That  is  what  I  would  explain  to 
the  Noble  Lord  if  he  would  but — what  shall  I  say  ? — keep  his  temper. 

The  beginning  of  my  embarrassments,  it  will  not  surjirise  the 
Noble  Lord  to  learn,  since  it  has  also  been  *  the  beginning  of  *  almost 
every  human  ill  to  liimself,  was  the  repairing  of  the  house.  There 
was  a  destmction,  an  irregular iti/,  an  incessant  recurrence  of  small 
incidental  expenses,  during  all  that  period,  or  two  periods,  through 
which  I  found  myself  in  September  gone  a  yeai*,  ten  pounds  be- 
hind, instead  of  having  some  pounds  saved  up  towards  the  winter's 
coals.  I  could  have  worked  round  *  out  of  that,'  however,  in 
course  of  time,  if  habits  of  unpinched  housekeeping  had  not  been 
long  taken  to  by  you  as  well  as  myself,  and  if  new  unavoidable  or 
not  to  be  avoided  ctirrent  expenses  had  not  followed  close  on  tliose 
incidental  ones.  I  will  show  the  Noble  Lord,  with  his  permission, 
what  the  new  current  expenses  are,  and  to  what  they  amount  per 
annum.     (Hear,  hear !  and  cries  of  *  Be  brief ! ') 

1.  We  have  a  servant  of  *  higher  gi-ade '  than  we  ever  ventured 


140  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

on  before  ;  more  expensive  in  money.  Anne's  wages  are  16  pounds 
a  year  ;  Fanny's  were  13.  Most  of  the  others  had  12  ;  and  Anne 
never  dreams  of  being  other  than  loellfed.  The  others  scrambled 
for  their  living  out  of  ours.  Her  regular  meat  dinner  at  one 
o'clock,  regular  allowance  of  butter,  &c.,  adds  at  least  three  pounds 
a  year  to  the  year's  bills.  But  she  jjlagTies  us  with  no  fits  of  ill- 
ness nor  of  drunkenness,  no  warnings  nor  complainings.  She  does 
perfectly  what  she  is  paid  and  fed  to  do.  I  see  houses  not  so  well 
kept  with  'cook,'  'housemaid,'  and  'manservant'  (Question!). 
Anne  is  the  last  item  I  should  vote  for  retrenching  in.  I  may  set 
her  down,  however,  at  six  additional  pounds, 

2.  We  have  now  gas  and  water  'laid  on,' both  producing  ad- 
mirable results.  But  betwixt  '  water  laid  on  '  at  one  pound  sixteen 
shillings  per  annum,  with  shilling  to  turncock,  and  water  carried  at 
fourpence  a  week  there  is  a  yearly  difference  of  19  shillings  and 
four  pence  ;  and  betwixt  gas  all  the  year  round  and  a  few  sixpenny 
boxes  of  lights  in  the  winter  the  difference  may  be  computed  at 
fifteen  shillings.  These  two  excellent  innovations,  then,  increase 
the  yearly  expenditure  by  one  pound  fourteen  shillings  and  four- 
pence — a  trifle  to  speak  of ;  but  you,  my  Lord,  born  and  bred  in 
thrifty  Scotland,  must  know  well  the  proverb,  '  Every  little  mak's 
a  mickle.' 

3.  We  are  higher  taxed.  Within  the  last  eighteen  months  there 
has  been  added  to  the  Lighting,  Pavement,  and  Improvement 
Rate  ten  shillings  yearly,  to  the  Poor  Rate  one  pound,  to  the 
sewer  rate  ten  shillings ;  and  now  the  doubled  Income  Tax  makes 
a  difference  of  5/.  16s.  8d.  yearly,  which  sums,  added  together, 
amount  to  a  difference  of  71.  16s.  8c?.  yearly,  on  taxes  which  already 
amounted  to  17/.  12s.  8d.  There  need  be  no  reflections  for  want 
of  taxes. 

4.  Provisions  of  all  sorts  are  higher  priced  than  in  former  years. 
Four  shilling  a  week  for  bread,  instead  of  two  shillings  and  six- 
pence, makes  at  the  year's  end  a  difference  of  3/.  18s.  Butter  has 
kept  all  the  year  round  2d.  a  pound  dearer  than  I  ever  knew  it. 
On  the  quantity  we  use — two  pounds  and  a  half  per  week  *  quite 
reg'lar' — there  is  a  difference  of  21s.  8d.  by  the  year.  Butcher's 
meat  is  a  penny  a  pound  dearer.  At  the  rate  of  a  pound  and  a  half 
a  day,  ho7ies  included — no  exorbitant  allowance  for  three  people — 
the  difference  on  that  at  the  year's  end  would  be  21  5s.  6d.  Coals, 
which  had  been  for  some  years  at  21s.  per  ton,  cost  this  year  26s., 
last  year  29s.,  bought  judiciously,  too.     If  I  had  had  to  pay  50s.  a 


The  Economies  of  CJut/jit  Uuio,  141 

ton  for  them,  as  some  housewives  had  to,  God  knows  what  would 
liave  become  of  me.  (Passionate  cries  of  *  Question !  question  ! ') 
We  bum,  or  used  to  bum — I  am  afraid  they  are  going  faster  this 
winter — twelve  tons,  one  year  with  another.  Candles  ai*e  riz :  com- 
IX)sites  a  shilling  a  ix)und,  instead  of  lOii. ;  dips  8  i)ence,  instead  of 
bd.  or  6</.  Of  the  former  we  bum  three  pounds  in  nine  days— the 
greater  part  of  the  year  you  sit  so  late— and  of  dips  two  pounds  a 
fortnight  on  the  average  of  the  whole  year.  Bacon'«is  2d.  a  pound 
dearer  ;  soap  ditto  ;  potatoes,  at  the  cheapest,  a  penny  a  pound,  in- 
stead of  three  pounds  for  2d.  We  use  three  pounds  of  potatoes  in 
two  days'  meals.  Who  could  imagine  that  at  the  year's  end  that 
makes  a  difference  of  15s.  2d.  on  one's  mere  potatoes  ?  Compute 
all  this,  and  you  will  find  that  the  difference  on  provisions  cannot 
be  under  twelve  pounds  in  the  year. 

5.  What  I  should  blush  to  state  if  I  were  not  at  bay,  so  to  speak  : 
ever  since  we  have  been  in  London  you  have,  in  the  handsomest 
manner,  paid  the  winter's  butter  with  your  own  money,  though  it 
was  not  in  the  bond.  And  this  gentlemanlike  proceeding  on  your 
part,  till  the  butter  became  uneatable,  was  a  good  two  pounds 
saved  me. 

Add  up  these  differences : — 

1.  Rise  on  servant      .     .     . 

2.  Rise  on  light  and  water 

3.  On  taxes 

4.  On  provisions 12 

5.  Cessation  of  butter   . 

You  wiU  find  a  total  of  £29  10    8 

My  calculation  will  be  found  quite  correct,  though  I  am  not 
strong  in  arithmetic.  I  have  thochtered  all  this  well  in  my  head, 
and  indignation  makes  a  sort  of  arithmetic,  as  well  as  verses.  Do 
you  finally  understand  why  the  allowance  which  sufficed  formerly 
no  longer  suffices,  and  pity  my  difficulties  instead  of  being  angry 
at  them  ? 

The  only  thing  you  can  reproach  me  with,  if  you  like,  is  that 
fift.oii  montlis  ago,  when  I  found  myself  already  in  debt,  and  eveiy- 
thiJij,'  rifiinfj  on  me,  I  did  not  fall  at  once  io  pinchiug  awiX  inuddlinfft 
as  when  we  didn't  know  where  the  next  money  was  to  come  from, 
instead  of  *  lashing  down  *  at  the  accustomed  rate  :  nay,  expanding 
into  a  '  regular  ser^'ant.'   But  you  ai*e  to  recollect  that  when  I  ftnt 


£     8. 

d. 

6    0 

0 

1  14 

0 

7  16 

8 

12    0 

0 

2    0 

0 

142  Caiiyle's  Life  in  London. 

complained  to  you  of  the  prices,  you  said,  quite  good-naturedly, 
'  Then  you  are  coming  to  bankruptcy,  are  you  ?  Not  going  to  be 
able  to  go  on,  you  think  ?  Well,  then,  we  must  come  to  your  as- 
sistance, poor  crlttur.  You  mustn't  be  made  a  bankrupt  of.'  Sol 
kept  my  mind  easy,  and  retrenched  in  nothing,  relying  on  the 
promised  '  assistance.'  But  when  '  Oh  !  it  was  lang  o'  coming,  lang 
o'  coming,'  my  arrears  taking  every  quarter  a  more  alarming  cifer, 
what  could  I  do  but  put  you  in  mind  ?  Once,  twice,  at  the  third 
speaking,  what  you  were  pleasantly  calling  'a  great  heap  of  money  ' 
— 15/. — was — what  shall  I  say  ? — flung  to  me.  Far  from  leaving 
anytliing  to  meet  the  increased  demand  of  another  nine  months, 
this  sum  did  not  clear  me  of  debt,  not  by  five  pounds.  But  from 
time  to  time  encouraging  loords  fell  from  the  Noble  Lord.  *  No, 
you  cannot  pay  the  double  Income  Tax  ;  clearly,  I  must  pay  that 
for  you.'  And  again  :  '  I  will  burn  as  many  coals  as  I  like  ;  if  you 
can't  pay  for  them  somebody  must ! '  All  resulting,  however,  thus 
far  in  ^ Don't  you  icish  you  may  get  it?'  Decidedly  I  should  have 
needed  to  be  more  than  mortal,  or  else  *  a  born  daughter  of  Chaos,' 
to  have  gone  on  without  attempt  made  at  ascertaining  what  coming 
to  my  assistance  meant :  whether  it  meant  15/.  without  a  blessing 
once  for  all ;  and,  if  so,  what  retrenchments  were  to  be  permitted. 

You  asked  me  at  last  money  row,  with  withering  sarcasm,  '  had 
I  the  slightest  idea  what  amount  of  money  would  satisfy  me.  Was 
I  wanting  50/.  more  ;  or  forty,  or  thirty  ?  Was  there  any  conceiv- 
able sum  of  money  that  could  put  an  end  to  my  eternal  bothera- 
tion ? '  I  will  answer  the  question  as  if  it  had  been  asked  prac- 
tically and  kindly. 

Yes.  I  have  the  strongest  idea  what  amount  of  money  would 
'  satisfy '  me.  I  have  computed  it  often  enough  as  I  lay  awake  at 
nights.  Indeed,  when  I  can't  sleep  now  it  is  my  '  difficulties '  I  think 
about  more  than  my  sins,  till  they  become  '  a  real  mental  awgony 
in  my  own  inside.'  The  above-named  sum,  29/.,  divided  into  quar- 
terly payments,  would  satisfy  me  (with  a  certain  parsimony  about 
little  things  somewhat  less  might  do),  I  engaging  my  word  of  a 
gentlewoman  to  give  hack  at  the  year's  end  whatever  portion  thereof 
any  diminution  of  the  demand  on  me  might  enable  me  to  save. 

I  am  not  so  unpractical,  however,  as  to  ask  for  the  whole  29/. 
without  thought  or  care  where  it  is  to  come  from.  I  have  settled 
all  that  (Derisive  laughter,  and  Hear,  hear  !),  so  that  nine  pounds 
only  will  have  to  be  disbursed  by  you  over  and  above  your  long- 
accustomed  disbursements  (Hear,  hear!).     You  anticipate,   per^ 


The  Economies  of  Cfwtjne  Rotr.  148 

haps,  some  draft  on  your  waste-paper  Ijasket.  No,  my  Lord,  it 
has  never  been  my  habit  to  interfere  with  your  ways  of  making 
money,  or  the  rate  which  you  make  it  at ;  and  if  I  never  did  it  in 
eai'ly  years,  most  unlikely  I  should  do  it  now.  My  bill  of  ways 
and  means  has  nothing  to  do  with  making  money,  only  with  dis- 
ix)siug  of  the  money  made.     (Bravo  !  hear !) 

1.  Ever  since  my  mother's  death  you  have  allowed  me  for  old 
rviaiy  ?*Iills  3/.  yearly.  She  needs  them  no  more.  Continue  these 
titree  pourulsfor  the  fioiise. 

2.  Through  the  same  long  term  of  years  you  have  made  me  the 
handsomest  Christmas  and  birthday  presents ;  and  when  I  had 
purposely  disgusted  you  from  hnifing  me  things^  you  gave  me  at  the 
New  Year  bl.  Oh  I  know  the  meaning  of  that  5/.  quite  well.  Give 
me  nothing  ;  neither  money  nor  money's  worth.  I  would  have  it 
so  anyhow,  and  continue  the  5/.  for  the  house. 

3.  Ever  since  we  came  to  London  you  have  paid  some  2/.,  I 
guess,  for  butter^  now  become  uneatable.  Continue  that  2/.  for  the 
house ;  and  we  have  already  ten  pounds  which  you  can't  miss,  not 
having  been  used  to  them. 

4.  My  allowance  of  25/.  is  a  very  libeml  one  ;  has  enabled  me  to 
spend  freely  for  myself ;  and  I  don't  deny  there  is  a  pleasure  in 
that  when  there  is  no  household  crisis;  but  with  an  appalling 
deficit  in  the  house  exchequer,  it  is  not  only  no  pleasure  but  an 
imix)ssibility.  I  can  keep  up  my  dignity  and  my  wardrobe  on  a 
loss  sum — on  15/.  a  year.  A  silk  dress,  'a  splendid  dressing- 
gown,'  *  a  milliner's  bonnet'  the  less  ;  What  signifies  that  at  my 
age?  Nothing.  Besides,  I  have  had  so  many  'gowns'  given  me 
that  they  may  serve  for  two  or  three  years.  By  then  God  knows  if  I 
shall  be  needing  gowns  at  all.  So  deduct  10/.  from  my  personal 
allowance  ;  and  continue  that  for  the  house. 

But  why  not  transfer  it  privately  from  my  own  purse  to  the 
house  one,  and  ask  only  for  19/.  ?  It  would  have  sounded  more 
modest—^Mrec/  better.  Just  because  *  that  sort  of  thing '  don't 
please  me.  I  have  tried  it  and  found  it  a  bad  go :  a  virtue  not  its 
own  reward !  I  am  for  every  herring  to  hang  by  its  own  head, 
overy  purse  to  stand  on  its  own  bottom.  It  would  woiry  me  to  be 
thought  rolling  in  the  wealth  of  25/.,  when  I  was  cleverly  making 

15/.  do,  and  investing  10/.  in  coals  and  taxes.     Mrs.  is  up  to 

that  sort  of  self-sacrifice  thing,  and  to  finding  compensation  in  the 
sympathy  of  many  friends,  and  in  smouldering  discontent.  I  am 
Up  to  neither  the  magnanimity  nor  the  compensation,  but  I  am 


144  Carlyle-8  Life  in  London. 

quite  up  to  laying  down  lOZ.  of  my  allowance  in  a  straight-forward 
recognised  way,  without  standing  on  my  toes  to  it  either.  And 
what  is  more,  I  am  determined  upon  it,  will  not  accept  more  than 
15/.  in  the  present  state  of  affairs. 

There  only  remains  to  disclose  the  actual  state  of  the  exchequer. 
It  is  empty  as  a  dram.  (Sensation.)  If  I  consider  twenty-nine 
more  pounds  indispensable — things  remaining  as  they  are — for  the 
coming  year,  beginning  the  22nd  of  March,  it  is  just  because  I 
have  found  it  so  in  the  year  that  is  gone  ;  and  I  commenced  that,  as 
I  have  already  stated,  with  10/.  of  arrears.  You  assisted  me  with 
15/.,  and  I  have  assisted  myself  with  10/.,  five  last  August,  which 
I  took  from  the  Savings  Bank,  and  the  five  you  gave  me  at  New 
Year,  which  I  threw  into  the  coal  account.  Don't  suppose — '  if 
thou's  i'  the  habit  of  supposing  ' — that  I  tell  you  this  in  the  un- 
devout  imagination  of  being  repaid.  By  all  that's  sacred  for  me — 
the  memory  of  my  father  and  mother — what  else  can  an  irreligious 
creature  like  me  swear  by  ?  I  would  not  take  back  that  money  if 
you  offered  it  with  the  best  grace,  and  had  picked  it  up  in  the 
street.  I  tell  it  you  simply  that  you  may  see  I  am  not  so  dread- 
fully greedy  as  you  have  appeared  to  think  me  latterly.  Setting 
iny  10/.  then  against  the  original  arrears,  with  15/.  in  assistance 
from  you,  it  would  follow,  from  my  own  computation,  that  I  should 
need  14/.  more  to  clear  off  arrears  on  the  weekly  bills  and  carry  me 
on  paying  my  way  until  22nd  of  March,  next  quarter-day.  (Cries 
of  Shame!  and  Turn  her  out!)  I  say  only  ^should  need.'  Your 
money  is  of  course  yours,  to  do  as  you  will  with,  and  I  would  like 
to  again  *  walk  the  causeway  '  carrying  my  head  as  high — as — Mr. 
A.,  the  upholsterer,  owing  no  man  anything,  and  dearly  I  would  like 
to  '  at  all  rates  let  you  alone  of  it, '  if  I  knew  who  else  had  any 
business  with  my  housekeeping,  or  to  whom  else  I  could  properly 
address  myself  for  the  moment ;  as  what  with  that  expensive,  most 
ill-timed  dressing-gown,  and  my  cheap  ill-timed  chiffonnier,  and 
my  half-year's  bills  to  Ehind  and  Catchpole,  I  have  only  what  will 
serve  me  till  June  comes  round. 

If  I  was  a  man,  I  might  fling  the  gauntlet  to  Society,  join  with 
a  few  brave  fellows,  and  '  rob  a  diligence.'  But  my  sex  '  kind  o' 
debars  from  that.'  Mercy!  to  think  there  are  women — your  friend 
Lady  A.,  for  example  {'  Eumeurs  I '  Sensation) — I  say  for  example; 
who  spend  not  merely  the  additamental  pounds  I  must  make  such 
pother  about,  but  four  times  my  whole  income  in  the  ball  of  one 
night,  and  none  the  worse  for  it,  nor  anyone  the  better.     It  is — 


The  hjconoriueH  of  Chcyne  lioic.  145 

what  shall  I  say? — 'curions,' upon  my  honour.  But  just  in  the 
same  manner  Mrs.  Freeman  might  say :  *To  think  there  are  women 
— Mrs.  Carlyle,  for  example — who  8i)end  3/.  14s.  6r/  on  one  dress- 
ing-gown, and  I  with  just  ttro  Uxives  and  eighteen  pence  from  the 
parish,  to  live  on  by  the  week.'  There  is  no  bottom  to  such  reflec- 
tions. The  only  thing  one  is  perfectly  sure  of  is  *  it  will  come  all 
to  the  same  ultimately,'  and  I  can't  say  I'll  regret  the  loss  of  my- 
self, for  one. — I  add  no  more,  but  remain,  dear  Sir,  your  obedient 
humble  servant,  Jane  Welsh  Caklyle. 

Mrs.  Carlyle,  it  must  be  admitted,  knew  how  to  admin- 
ister a  'slirewing.'  Her  poor  husband,  it  must  be  admitted, 
also  knew  how  to  bear  one.  lie,  perhaps,  bore  it  too  well, 
for  tliere  were  parts  of  what  she  said  which  he  might  with 
advantage  have  laid  to  lieart  sei-iously.  At  any  rate,  he 
recoo^nized  instantly  and  without  the  least  resentment  the 
truth  of  a  statement  to  which  he  had  been  too  impatient 
to  listen.  The  cleverness  of  it  delighted  him,  in  spite  of 
the  mockery  of  himself  and  his  utterances.  At  the  foot 
of  the  last  page  he  wrote  immediately — 

Excellent,  my  dear  clever  Goody,  thriftiest,  wittiest,  and  clever- 
est of  women.  I  will  set  thee  up  again  to  a  certainty,  and  thy  30il 
more  shall  be  granted,  thy  bits  of  debts  paid,  and  thy  will  be  done. 

Feb.  12,  1855.  T.  C. 

^o  man  ever  beliaved  better  under  such  a  chastisement. 
Not  a  trace  is  visible  of  resentment  or  impatience,  though 
also  less  regret  than  a  perfect  husband  ouglit  to  have  felt 
that  he  had  to  a  certain  extent  deserved  it.  Unfortu- 
nately, knowing  that  he  had  meant  no  hai-m  and  had  done 
all  that  he  was  asked  to  do  the  instant  that  the  facts  were 
before  him,  he  never  could  take  a  lesson  of  this  kind 
properly  to  heart,  and  could  be  just  as  inconsiderate  and 
just  as  provoking  on  the  next  occasion  that  arose.  Poor 
Carl^'le!  AVell  he  might  complain  of  his  loneliness! 
though  he  was  himself  in  part  the  cause  of  it.  Both  he 
and  she  were  noble  and  generous,  but  his  was  the  soft 
heart,  and  hei*s  the  stern  one. 
Vol.  IV. -10 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

A.D.  1854-7.    iET.  59-62. 

Difficulties  over  '  Frederick  ' — Crimean  war — Louis  Napoleon  in 
England — Edward  Fitzgerald — Farlingay — Three  weeks  at 
Addiscombe — Mrs.  Carlyle  and  Lady  Ashburton — Scotsbrig — 
Kinloch  Luicliart — Lady  Asbburton's  death — Effect  on  Carlyle 
— Solitude  in  Cheyne  Eow — Kiding  costume — Fritz — Com- 
pletion of  the  first  two  volumes  of  Frederick ' — Carlyle  as  a 
historian. 

Journal. 

Chelsea,  September  16,  1854. — 'The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer 
is  ended,  and  we  are  not  saved,'  What  a  fearful  word  !  I  cannot 
find  how  to  take  up  that  miserable  'Frederick,'  or  what  on  earth 
to  do  with  it.  '  Hohenzollerns,'  '  Sketches  of  German  History  ' — 
something  of  all  that  I  have  tried,  but  everything  breaks  down 
from  innumerable  outward  impediments — alas  !  alas !  from  the 
defect  of  inward  fire.  I  am  getting  old,  yet  would  grudge  to 
depart  without  trying  to  tell  a  little  more  of  my  mind.  This  of 
repairing  my  house  has  been  a  dreadful  thing,  tumbling  topsy- 
turvy all  my  old  habits,  &c.  I  feel  as  if  I  never  could  write  any 
more  in  these  sad,  altered  circumstances ;  as  if  it  were  like  being 
placed  on  the  point  of  a  spear,  and  there  bidden  at  once  stand  and 
write.  That  was  my  thought  this  morning  when  I  awoke — an 
unjust,  exaggerated  thought ;  yet  it  is  certain  all  depends  on  my- 
self ;  and  in  the  whole  earth,  probably,  there  is  not  elsewhere  so 
lonely  a  soul.  To  work !  Try  to  get  some  work  done,  or  thou 
wilt  go  mad. 

October  25. — I  do  not  write  here,  or  write  at  all,  to  say  how  ill 
I  prosper,  how  ill  I  manage  myself ;  what  a  sad  outlook  my 
studies,  interests,  and  endeavours  in  this  world  continue  to  offer. 
I  seem  as  if  beaten,  disgracefully  vanquished,  in  this  '  the  last  of 
my  fields.'    I  am  weak — a  poor  angry-hearted  mortal,  sick,  soli- 


('riifwan    War.  147 

tary,  and  altogether  foiled.  For  a  week  or  two  past  I  have  been 
to  the  State  Paper  Office,  in  hopes  of  getting  some  illumination 
for  my  dim,  dreary,  impossible  course  through  the  *  desert  of 
Brandenburg  sand.'  Occasionally  it  has  seemed  promising.  Neu- 
berg  has  now  been  admitted,  or  will  be  in  a  day  or  two,  to  at- 
tend me  there,  the  good  man  having  heroically  undertaken  that 
piece  of  charity.  Let  us  see  ;  let  us  see.  Nothing  but  '  remorse^* 
the  sharp  sting  of  conscience  for  time  wasted,  canies  me  along, 
or  even  induces  such  a  resolution  for  desperate  effort  as  could 
carry  me  along.  Alas  !  I  am  not  yet  into  the  tiling.  Generally,  it 
seems  as  if  I  never  should  or  could  get  into  it.  What  will  become 
of  me  ?  Am  I  absolutely  beaten  by  this  and  the  thousand  other 
paltry  things  that  have  gone  wrong  with  me  in  these  late  times  ? 

*  Victoiy  at  the  Alma !  '  tierce  and  bloody  ;  forcing  a  passage 
right  across  fortified  heights  and  45,000  Russians,  to  begin  the 
siege  of  Sebastopol— a  terrible,  and  almost  hon-ible  operation, 
done  altogether  at  the  command  of  the  newspapers.  What  have  I 
to  do  with  all  that  ?  In  common,  I  believe,  with  nearly  all  the 
rational  men  in  the  countrv-,  I  have  all  along  been  totally  indis- 
posed to  this  miserable  Turk  war.  The  windy  fools  alone — it  is 
the  immense  majority  of  that  class,  that  have  done  and  do  this  last 
enterpiise  of  oui-s.  Would  we  were  well  out  of  it.  That  is  all 
my  prayer  and  thought  in  regard  to  that. 

Ajyril  4,  1855. — Writing  at  something  called  *  Frederick.'  The 
*  Double  Marriage '  at  present  most  mournful,  dreary,  undoable 
work.  All  the  world  in  emotion  about  Balaclava  and  the  Turk 
war— too  sad  a  fulfilment  of  my  'Latter  Day'  prophecies,  as 
many  now  admit.  I  perceive  it  to  be  the  beginning  of  bayih^uptcy 
to  Constitutional  England,  and  have  in  silence  my  own  thoughts 
about  it.  Lonelier  and  lonelier !  Let  me  get  along  with  my 
work.     For  me  there  is  no  other  good  ever  to  be  hoped. 

If  lie  needed  comfort,  he  was  not  likely  to  find  it  in 
tl»e  tliinojs  which  were  going  on  round  him.  It  was  no 
satisfaction  to  him  that  the  state  of  the  army  in  tlie 
Crimea— the  dysentery  and  starvation,  with  the  memo- 
ral)le  *  take  care  of  Dowb '  in  the  midst  of  it — confiimed 
liis  notions  of  the  nature  of  modern  British  administra- 
tion. In  this  April  came  the  still  more  sinister  phenome- 
non of  the  visit  to  England  of  the  Frenck  Emperor.     On 


148  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

this  point,  if  on  no  other,  he  was  at  one  witli  the  majority 
of  his  countrymen.  Outside  the  privileged  circles  who 
wanted  order  preserved,  and  security  to  property,  and 
safe  enjoyment  of  idle  luxury,  Louis  Napoleon  had  no 
friends  among  us.  But  the  times  were  hard,  and  we 
looked  on,  swallowing  down  our  disgust  as  best  we  could, 
while  the  man  of  December  was  entertained  at  Wind- 
sor. It  was  said  in  the  papers  that  he  was  received  in 
London  by  enthusiastic  crowds.  That  was  not  Carlyle's 
impression  from  what  he  himself  saw. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  April  20,  1855. 

Louis  Napoleon  has  not  been  shot  hitherto.  That  is  the  best 
that  can  be  said.  He  gathers,  they  say,  great  crowds  about  him, 
but  his  reception  from  the  hip-hip-hurrahing  classes  is  not  warm 
at  all.  On  Monday,  just  before  they  arrived,  I  came  (in  omnibus) 
down  Piccadilly.  Two  thin  and  thinnest  rows  of  the  most  abject- 
looking  human  wretches  I  had  ever  seen  or  dreamt  of — lame, 
crook-backed,  dwarfish,  dirty-shirted,  with  the  air  of  pickpockets 
and  City  jackals,  not  a  gent  hardly  among  them,  much  less  any 
vestige  of  a  gentleman — were  drawn  up  from  St.  James's  Street  to 
Hyde  Park  Corner  to  receive  the  august  pair.  I  looked  at  them 
with  a  shuddering  thankfulness  that  they  w^ere  not  drawn  up  to 
receive  me. 

April  23. — We  have  got  done  with  our  Emperor.  Thank  Heaven, 
he  took  himself  away  before  the  week  ended.  Never  was  such  a 
blaze  of  enthusiastic  reception,  &c,,  says  rumour,  which  I  for  my 
own  share  cannot  confirm  or  decisively  contradict.  Eoyal  children 
all  weeping  when  the  soi-disant  august  pair  took  themselves  away 
again — a  la  bonne  heure  ! 

Yery  bitter  this — too  bitter  as  we  look  back,  perhaps. 
Louis  Napoleon  was  a  symbol  and  creature  of  his  time, 
which  divided  with  him  tlie  crime  of  the  couj-)  cVetat.  He 
had  his  day,  and  paid  his  debt  at  the  end  of  it  to  the  re- 
tributory  powers.  But  while  his  day  lasted  and  he  seemed 
to  thrive,  he  was  an  ugly  object  in  the  ej^es  of  those  who 
believed  in  some  sort  of  Providence. 


Vvfit  to  Farlingay^  149 

*  Frederick '  meanwhile,  in  spite  of  lamentations  over 
failure,  was  at  last  moving.  Carlyle  had  stood  steadily  to 
it  for  eighteen  months,  and  when  August  came  he  re(]uired 
rest  and  change.  Many  friends  were  eager  for  the  honour 
of  entertaining  him.  There  was  no  longer  any  mother  to 
call  him  down  toScotsbrig.  lie  selected  among  them  Mr. 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  who  had  been  useful  to  him  in  the 
*  Cromwell'  days,  investigating  Xaseby  field,  and  whose 
fine  gifts  of  intellect  and  character  he  heartily  loved  and 
admired.  Mr.  Fitzgerald  lived  at  Woodbridge,  near  Far- 
lingay,  in  Suffolk,  an  old-fashioned  mansion-house  of  his 
own,  in  which  he  occupied  a  few  rooms,  the  rest  being  a 
farm-house.  The  scene  was  new  to  him.  A  Suffolk 
farmer,  *  with  a  dialect  almost  equal  to  Nithsdale,'  was  a 
fi-esh  experience.  The  farm  cookery  was  simple  and 
wholesome,  the  air  perfect,  the  sea,  with  a  beach  where  he 
could  bathe,  at  no  great  distance  ;  his  host  ready  to  be  the 
pleasantest  of  companions  if  his  society  was  wished  for, 
and  as  willing  '  to  efface  himself '  when  not  wanted. 
Under  these  conditions,  a  '  retreat '  for  a  few  days  to 
Woodbridge  was  altogether  agreeable.  The  love  which 
all  persons  who  really  knew  him  felt  for  Carlyle  made  it 
a  delight  to  minister  to  his  comfort.  His  humours  were 
part  of  himself.  They  took  him  as  he  was,  knowing  well 
how  amply  his  conversation  would  pay  for  his  entertain- 
ment. He,  for  his  part,  enjoyed  himself  exceptionally ; 
he  complained  of  nothing.  Place,  lodging,  company  were 
ecjually  to  his  mind. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Cnrlyle, 

Parlingay,  August  10. 
Ah  to  me,  all  things  go  prosperously.  I  made  an  excellent  sleep 
out  last  night — at  least,  two  sleeps  added  topjether  that  amounted 
to  excellent.  Yon  see  I  have  skill  in  the  weather  too.  Here  are 
the  sunny  autumn  days  begun,  and  this,  the  first  of  them,  has 
been  one  of  the  beautifnllest  that  could  be  desired ;  as  nice  a 
morning  as  I  remember  to  have  seen,  and  your  letter  waiting  for 


150  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

me,  and  good  Fitz  sitting  patient  on  a  big  block— hnge  stump  of 
a  tree-root,  on  which  they  have  sown  mignonette — at  the  head  of 
the  garden  till  I  pleased  to  come  down.  I  have  sauntered  about, 
reading,  in  the  fields.  We  drove  in  the  gig  :  afterwards  I  walked 
lustily  through  pleasant  lanes  and  quiet  country  roads,  all  of  hard, 
smooth  sand  ;  in  short,  a  day  suitable  to  my  purpose  in  coming 
here.  I  already  seem  to  feel  twice  as  strong  for  walking ;  step 
along  at  a  great  rate  in  spite  of  the  windless  heat.  I  design  to 
have  a  try  again  at  the  sea  to-morrow. 

August  13. 

There  have  been  some  adventures  here,  or  rather  one  adventure, 
but  all  goes  right  after  it  as  much  as  before.  It  was  an  adventure 
of  cows.  Cows  go  in  a  field — or  rather  went,  but  do  not  now  go — 
opposite  this  big  window,  separated  merely  by  the  garden  and  an 
invisible  fence.  The  night  after  I  wrote  last,  these  animals,  about 
2  a.m.,  took  to  lowing  with  an  energy  to  have  awakened  the  seven 
sleepers.  No  soul  could  guess  why  ;  but  there  they  raged  and 
lowed  through  the  night  watches,  awoke  the  whole  house  here, 
and  especially  awoke  me,  and  held  me  vigilant  till  six,  when  I 
arose  for  a  walk  through  fields  and  lanes.  No  evil  came  of  it,  only 
endless  sorrow  of  poor  Fitz  and  the  household,  endless  apologies, 
&c.  The  cows  were  removed,  and  I  have  slept  well  ever  since, 
and  am  really  growing  better  and  better  in  my  silent  rustication 
here.  Fitz  took  me  down  yesterday  to  Aldborough,  a  very  pleas- 
ant drive — seventeen  miles  ;  off  at  8  a.m.,  home  about  the  same 
hour  of  evening.  It  is  a  beautiful  little  sea  town,  one  of  the  best 
bathing-places  I  have  seen.  Nothing  can  excel  the  sea — a  mile  of 
fine  shingly  beach,  with  iDatches  of  smooth  sand  every  here  and 
there  ;  clear  water  shelving  rapidly,  deep  at  all  hours  ;  beach  soli- 
taiy  beyond  wont,  whole  town  rather  solitaiy.  My  notion  is,  if 
you  have  yet  gone  nowhere,  you  should  think  of  Aldborough.  If 
a  lodging  could  be  had  there,  which  is  probable,  I  could  like  very 
well  to  take  a  fortnight  or  so  of  it.  Never  saw  a  place  more  prom- 
ising. .  .  .  Adieu,  dearest !  Drown  Nero,  and  be  reasonable.—^ 
Yours  ever,  T.  C. 

August  17. 

No  news  from  you  to-day,  which  I  will  take  to  mean  that  there 
is  no  bad  news,  all  things  remaining  with  Goody,  as  they  do  with 
Illy,  in  statu  quo.  I  have  bathed  ;  I  have  been  driven  about. 
Weather  hot  and  shining,  without  wind.  Last  night  I  slept  un- 
usually well,  and  to-morrow  I  am  to  go.     Fitz  has  been  the  best 


Three   Weeks  at  Addiscomhe.  151 

of  landlords,  and  has  discharged  his  sacred  rites  really  with  a  kind 
of  Irish  zeal  and  piety  ;  a  man  not  to  be  forgotten.  He  has  done 
everything  except  •  leave  me  well  alone  ; '  tliat  he  has  not  quite 
done  ;  and  to  say  truth,  I  shall  not  care  to  be  off  and  lie  down  in 
my  own  comer  again,  even  with  the  sputter  of  Cremorne  in  the 
distance. 

Restless  spirit !  for  *  in  his  own  corner,'  when  *  he  did 
lie  down  in  it,'  he  grew  'sleepless,  disconsolate,  and  good 
for  little  or  nothing.'  The  Ashburtons,  knowing  his  con- 
dition, offered  him  Addiscomhe  again  for  the  short  re- 
mains of  the  summer,  and  there  he  and  Mrs.  Carlyle  tried 
to  make  a  brief  holiday  together.  It  did  not  answer.  She 
preferred  Chelsea  and  solitude,  and  left  him  to  wander 
about  the  Surrey  lanes  alone. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Addiscomhe  :  September  2,  1855.  Sunday  midnight 
My  poor  little  Jeannie  is  away.  You  may  fancy,  or  rather,  per- 
haps, in  your  spleen  you  will  not  fancy,  what  a  dreary  wae  sight  it 
was  to  me  this  morning  when  I  sallied  out,  stupid  and  sad,  and 
found  your  door  open,  the  one  cup  downstairs,  tea-pot  washed  out. 
'  Mrs.  Carlyle  gone  at  eight,  sir  ;  don't  know  wliither ; .  had  not 
slept  at  all.'  Alas!  alas!  I  know  not  even  whether  you  had  got 
any  breakfast.  It  did  not  strike  me  to  question  my  Hycena  further 
on  that  subject,  and  it  now  strikes  me  you  probably  had  none. 
Poor  little  soul !  tough  as  wire,  but  rather  heavy-laden.  Well,  I 
hope  you  are  now  asleep  in  your  own  safe,  big,  curtained  old  bed. 
In  all  ways  you  can  now  stretch  yourself  out. 

I  have  had  the  loneliest  day  I  can  recollect  in  all  my  life,  or 
about  the  very  loneliest.  I  declined  riding.  My  horse  had  need 
of  rest,  at  any  rate.  The  wind  was  howling  and  the  dust  flying, 
and  on  all  my  nerves  lay  dull  embargo,  only  io  be  lifted  by  hard 
labour.  I  set  out  soon  after  one ;  walked  over  heaths,  through 
thick  woods,  in  solitary  places,  with  a  huge  sough  of  the  wind  and 
a  grey  troublous  sky  for  company,  about  three  and  a  half  hours  ; 
did  not  weary,  did  not  much  improve.  Sate  smoking  once  with  a 
bush  at  my  back,  on  a  hillside  by  tlie  edge  of  a  wood.  Got  home 
five  minutes  before  five,  and  the  punctual  Dragon  was  there  with 
the  dinner  you  had  ordered.     After  dinner  I  read  for  an  hoar. 


152  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

smoked,  then  sate  clownrby  the  fire,  and,  waiting  to  ring  for  candle, 
fell  into  nightmare  sleep  till  almost  nine. 

I  look  for  you  on  Tuesday  early.  Nevertheless,  if  you  would 
rather  not,  I  have  no  doubt  of  getting  some  feasible  enough  dinner, 
&c.,  for  indeed  that  poor  woman  seems  to  understand  her  work 
v/ell  enough ;  and  the  Dragon  herself  is  all  civility  and  sugary 
smiles,  if  that  were  of  much  advantage.  For  the  rest,  the  dreari- 
ness of  solitude — that,  though  disagreeable  to  bear,  is  understood 
to  be  of  the  nature  of  medicine  to  the  mind  at  this  juncture.  No 
way  of  cleaning  muddy  water  but  by  letting  it  settle. 

However,  I  calculate  you  will  come,  and  take  the  reins  in  hand 
for  another  stage.  My  poor  little  Protectress !  Good  night  now 
finally.  T.  C. 

Such  letters  as  this  throw  strange  lights  into  Carlyle's 
domestic  life,  sad  and  infinitely  toncliing.  When  he  com- 
plains so  often  of  the  burdens  that  were  laid  upon  him,  one 
bet^-ins  to  understand  what  he  meant.  And  yet,  harassed 
and  overloaded  as  he  was,  he  could  find  leisure  for  acts  of 
kindness  to  strangers  who  would  not  have  intruded  on  him 
had  the  J  known  of  his  anxieties.  I  had  not  yet  settled  in 
London ;  but  I  came  up  occasionally  to  read  books  in  the 
Museum,  &c.  I  called  as  often  as  I  ventured  in  Clieyne 
Row,  and  was  always  made  welcome  there.-  But  I  was  a 
mere  outward  acquaintance,  and  had  no  right  to  expect 
such  a  man  as  Carlyle  to  exert  himself  for  me.  I  had, 
however,  from  the  time  when  I  became  acquainted  with 
his  writings,  looked  on  him  as  my  own  guide  and  master — 
so  absolutely  that  I  could  have  said  :  '  Malim  errare  cum 
Platone  quant  cum  aliis  hene  sentire '  /  or,  in  Goethe's 
words,  whfcli  I  often  indeed  did  repeat  to  myself :  '  Mit 
dmneni  Mehter  zii  irren  ist  dein  Gewinn.^  The  practice 
of  submission  to  the  authority  of  one  whom  one  recognises 
as  greater  than  one's  self  outweighs  the  chance  of  occa- 
sional mistake.  If  I  wrote  anything,  I  fancied  myself 
writing  it  to  him,  reflecting  at  each  word  on  wdiat  he 
would  think  of  it,  as  a  check  on  affectations.     1  was  busy 


Mrs.  Carlyle  aiul  Lady  Aahhurton.  153 

then  on  the  first  vohnne  of  my  *  History  of  England.*  I 
had  set  the  tirst  two  chapters  in  print  that  1  might  take 
counsel  with  friends  npon  them.  I  sent  a  copy  to  Carlyle, 
which  must  have  reached  him  about  the  time  of  tliis  Addis- 
combe  sojourn,  and  it  came  back  to  me  with  ]>encil  criticisms 
which,  though  not  wanting  in  severity,  consoled  me  for  the 
censures  which  fell  so  heavily  on  those  chapters  when  the 
book  was  published. 

Autumn  passed  on,  and  winter  and  spring,  and  Carlyle 
was  still  at  his  desk.  At  Christmas  there  was  another  visit 
to  the  Grange.  '  Company  at  first  aristocratic  and  select : 
Lord  Lansdowne  and  Kobert  Lowe;  then  miscellaneous 
shifting,  chiefly  of  the  scientific  kind,'  and  moderately  in- 
teresting. But  his  stay  w^as  short,  and  he  was  absorbed 
again  at  his  work  in  the  garret  room.  With  Mrs.  Carlyle, 
unfortunately,  it  was  a  period  of  ill-health,  loneliness,  and 
dispiritment.  At  the  end  of  1855  she  had  commenced  the 
diary,  from  which  her  husUand  first  learnt,  after  her  death, 
how  miserable  she  had  been,  and  learnt  also  that  he  him- 
self had  been  in  part  the  cause.  It  was  continued  on  into 
the  next  spring  and  sunmier,  in  the  same  sad,  stoically  in- 
dignant tone ;  the  consummation  of  ten  years  of  resent- 
ment at  an  intimacy  which,  under  happier  circumstances, 
should  have  been  equally  a  delight  to  herself,  yet  was  ill- 
managed  by  all  parties  concerned,  and  steeped  in  gall  and 
bitterness  her  own  married  life.  It  is  impossible  to  suf>- 
pose  that  Lady  Ashburton  was  not  aware  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's 
feelings  towards  her.  She  had  a  right  perhaps  to  think 
tliem  ridiculous,  but  for  Carlyle's  own  sake  she  ought  to 
have  been  careful  how  she  behaved  to  her.  If  nine-tenths 
of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  injuries  were  imaginary,  if  her  proud  and 
sensitive  disposition  saw  affronts  where  there  had  been 
only  a  great  lady's  negligence,  there  was  a  real  something 
of  which  she  had  a  right  to  complain ;  only  her  husband's 
want  of  i>erception  in  such  matters  could  have  prevented 


154  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

him  from  seeing  how  imfit  it  was  that  she  should  have  to 
go  and  come  at  Lady  Aslibnrton's  bidding,  under  fear  of 
her  husband's  displeasure.  A  small  incident  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1856,  though  a  mere  trifle  in  itself,  may  serve  as  an 
illustration  of  what  she  had  to  undergo.  The  Carlyles  were 
going  for  a  holiday  to  Scotland.  Lady  Ashburton  was 
going  also.  She  had  engaged  a  palatial  carriage,  which 
had  been  made  for  the  Queen  and  her  suite,  and  she  pro- 
posed to  take  the  Carlyles  down  with  her.  The  carriage 
consisted  of  a  spacious  saloon,  to  which,  communicating 
wdth  it,  an  ordinary  compai'tment  with  the  usual  six  seats 
in  it  was  attached.  Lady  Ashburton  occupied  the  saloon 
alone.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  though  in  bad  health  and  needing 
rest  as  much  as  Lady  A.,  was  placed  in  the  compartment 
with  her  husband,  the  family  doctor,  and  Lady  A.'s  maid,' 
a  position  perfectly  proper  for  her  if  she  was  a  dependent, 
but  in  which  no  lady  could  have  been  placed  whom  Lady 
Ashburton  regarded  as  her  own.  equal  in  rank.  It  may  be 
that  Mrs.  Carlyle  chose  to  have  it  so  herself.  But  Lady 
A.  ought  not  to  have  allowed  it,  and  Carlyle  ought  not  to 
have  allowed  it,  for  it  was  a  thing  wrong  in  itself.  One  is 
not  surprised  to  find  that  when  Lady  A.  offered  to  take  her 
home  in  the  same  wa}^  she  refused  to  go.  '  If  there  were 
any  companionship  in  the  matter,'  she  said  bitterly,  when 
Carlyle  communicated  Lady  A.'s  proposal,  'it  would  be 
different ;  or  if  you  go  back  with  the  Ashburtons  it  will 
be  different,  as  then  I  should  be  going  as  part  of  your  lug- 
gage without  self -responsibility.'  Carlyle  regarded  the 
Ashburtons  as  '  great  people,'  to  whom  he  w^as  under  obli- 
gations :  who  had  been  very  good  to  him :  and  of  whose 
tixdn  he  in  a  sense  formed  a  part.  Mrs.  Carlyle,  with  her 
proud,  independent,  Scotch  republican  spirit,  imperfectly 
recognised  these  social  distinctions.  This  it  may  be  said 
was  a  trifle,  and  ought  not  to  have  been  made  much  of. 

1  See  Hejniniacences;  p.  463. 


Autumn  in  Scotland.  155 

But  there  is  no  sifirn  tliat  Mrs.  Carlyle  did  make  much  of 
what  was  but  a  small  instance  of  her  general  lot.  It  hap- 
pens to  stand  out  by  being  mentioned  incidentally.  That  is 
all.  But  enough  has  been  said  of  this  sad  matter,  which 
was  now  drawing  near  its  end. 

On  reaching  Scotland  the  party  separated.  Lady  Ash- 
burton  went  to  the  Highlands,  where  Carlyle  was  to  fol- 
low in  September.  Mrs.  Carlyle  went  to  her  cousins  in 
Fife  and  he  to  Scotsbrig,  which  he  had  left  last  after  his 
mother's  funeral.  All  his  family  were  delighted  to  see 
him  once  more  amongst  them.  His  brother  James  was 
waiting  for  him  at  the  station.  His  sister-in-law  had 
provided  a  long  hqw  j>7/i>e  of  the  right  Glasgow  manufac- 
ture :  he  would  smoke  nothing  else.  His  mother — she, 
alas !  was  not  there  :  only  the  chair  in  which  she  had  sate, 
now  vacant. 

But  (as  he  said)  there  is  no  wisdom  in  yielding  to  such  thoughts. 
It  is  on  death  that  all  life  has  been  appointed  to  stand  for  its  brief 
season,  and  none  of  us  can  escape  the  law.  There  is  a  certain 
solemn  consolation  which  reconciles  me  to  almost  everything  in  the 
thought  that  I  am  myself  fairly  old;  that  all  the  confusions  of  life, 
whether  of  this  colour  or  that,  are  soon  about  to  sink  into  nothing, 
and  only  the  soul  of  one's  work,  if  one  did  any  that  had  a  soul,  can 
be  exx)ected  to  survive. 

He  had  not  come  to  Scotsbrig  to  be  idle ;  he  had  his 
work  with  him,  at  which  he  toiled  on  steadily.  He  had 
expected  his  wife  to  join  him  there,  but  she  showed  no  in- 
tention that  way.  He  wrote  to  her  regularly  with  his 
usual  quiet  affection.  Her  answers '  he  found  sombre  and 
distnistful  perhaps  beyond  need,'  but  kind  and  good  ;  he 
*  begged  her  to  know  that  in  his  own  way  none  loved  lier 
so  well  as  he,  or  felt  that  he  had  better  cause  to  do  so.' 
From  Scotsbrig  he  moved  to  his  sister's  at  the  Gill,  by 
Annan — happy  among  his  own  kindred,  longing  to  be  'out 
of  London,  never  to  return,'  and  to  spend  the  rest  of  his 


156  CarlyUs  Life  in  London. 

days  in  a  scene  where  health  of  mind  and  body  would  not 
be  impossible. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

The  Gill :  August  7,  1857. 
I  seem  to  be  doing  really  excellently  in  regard  to  health.  What 
a  change  {mostly  for  the  better)  has  been  brought  about  since  I  es- 
caped from  that  Devil's  oven  with  its  dirts  and  noises.  The  dis- 
gusting dearth  of  London,  the  noise,  unwholesomeness,  dirt,  and 
fret  of  one's  whole  existence  there  has  often  forced  itself  upon  me 
when  I  look  at  this  frugality  and  these  results.  If  I  had  done 
with  those  books  what  more  have  I  to  do  with  that  healthless, 
profitless,  mad,  and  heavy-laden  place  ?  I  will  really  put  it  to  you 
once  more  to  consider  if  it  were  not  better  we  returned  to  poor  old 
Scotland,  there  to  adjust  ourselves  a  little,  there  to  lay  our  bonea^ 
I  care  not  much  in  what  part.  Annandale  is  very  sad  to  me,  and 
has  no  charm  almost,  except  that  Jamie  would  be  here.  It  is 
certain  we  might  live  here  in  opulence,  keep  brougham,  cow, 
minister's  man,  &c.),  and  give  our  poor  selves  and  Nero  a  much 
wholesomer  life  were  those  j)rinting  enterprises  once  ended. 

One  spot  Carlyle  could  not  fail  to  visit — the  Ecclefechan 
kirkyard  : — 

On  Sunday  (he  said)  I  made  a  visit  whither  you  can  guess ;  had 
a  few  sacred  moments  there,  standing  with  bared  head  out  of  sight. 
Surely  there  is  not  any  mysteiy  more  divine  than  this  unspeakably 
sad  and  holy  one.  There  they  were  all  lying  in  peace,  having  well 
finished  their  fight.  '  Very  bonny  ;  very  bonny,'  as  poor  old  Mary 
Mills  said  in  another  case.* 

He  continued  well  in  health.  IS'ever  in  his  life  had  he 
more  the  kind  of  chance  he  was  always  crying  out  for — 
'  perfect  kindness  and  nearly  perfect  solitude,  the  freshest 
of  air,  wholesomest  of  food,  riding  horse,  and  every  essen- 
tial provided — m — m — better  than  he — m — deserved.'" 
*  He  had  got  some  work  done,'  '  made  a  real  impression 
on  the  papers  he  had  brought  with  him.'  Why  could  not 
he  stay  wdiere  he  w^as  when  he  w^as  well  off  ?     Why  need 

1  Of  the  grave  of  Mrs.  Welsh. 

3  Coleridge  ;  with  the  humming  pronunciation. 


Ill  the  Jllfjlilanda,  •  157 

he  have  supposed  that  lie  mnst  start  away  to  the  Ash- 
burtons  at  Loch  Luichart '{  Harvest,  he  said,  was  coining 
ou  in  Annandale,  when  guests  were  inconvenient.  Any 
way,  it  was  a  fresh  drop  of  acid  to  his  wife,  who  took  no 
notice  to  him  of  the  letter  in  which  he  informed  her  of  liia 
purpose,  but  wrote  to  another  of  the  family. 

You  say  in  your  lettei-a  to  — —  (he  said)  you  wait  for  Mb.  C.'s 
plans.  Alas  !  Mr.  C.  has  no  plans  you  do  not  long  since  know  of. 
He  means  to  be  back  at  Chelsea  at  his  work  about  the  end  of  Sep- 
tember ;  would  be  well  content  to  pass  the  whole  time  on  these 
present  terms,  here  and  about  here  ;  has  no  theory  of  future  move- 
ments as  visits,  except  that  one  to  the  Inverness  regions,  which  he 
will  avoid  if  he  can.     That  is  the  whole  truth. 

It  appeared  he  could  not  avoid  it,  for  he  went  to  Loch 
Luichart,  stayed  a  fortnight  there,  and  did  not  enjoy 
himself,  if  we  may  judge  from  this  specimen  of  his  ex- 
periences : — 

Kinloch  Luichart :  September  23. 
Very  cold  ;  no  fire,  or  none  but  an  imaginaiy  one,  can  be  per- 
mitted in  the  drawing-room.  Her  ladyship  is  in  worse  humour 
than  usual ;  is  capable  of  being  driven  to  extremities  by  your 
setting  up  a  peat  from  its  flat  ix)sture  :  so  I  have  learned  altogether 
to  abstain.  Nothing  earthly  to  be  done,  nothing  good  to  be  read, 
to  be  said,  or  thought.  This  is  not  a  luxurious  kind  of  life  for  a 
poor  wayfaring  individual.  My  commonest  resource  is  this :  to 
walk  out  from  six  to  ten  miles,  ducking  under  bushes  from  the 
showers  ;  return  utterly  tired,  put  on  dressing-gown,  cape,  plaid, 
&c.,  and  lie  down  on  one's  bed  under  all  the  woollen  stuflf  one  can 
gather,  with  liat  laid  on  cheek  to  keep  out  the  light.  I  usu- 
ally get  to  a  kind  of  warm  half-sleep,  and  last  till  dinner  time  not 
80  ill  off. 

His  wife  was  still  silent  for  some  days,  and  when  she 
wrote  it  was  to  be  satirical  at  his  situation,  and  to  i*efuse, 
in  sharper  tones  than  he  liked,  to  return  under  Lady  A.'S 
convoy  to  London. 

The  second  part  of  your  letter  (he  replied)  is  far  less  pleasant  to 
me  than  the  flrbt.    It  is  wholly  grounded  on  misknowledge,  or  iu 


158  .  CarlyU's  Life  in  London. 

deep  ignorance 'of  the  circumstances,  and  deserves  for  answer  no 
further  details,  credible  or  incredible,  about  these  Highland  mat- 
ters till  we  meet.  There  is  for  you — but  you  are  a  good  body, 
too !  What  you  say  about  the  regal  vehicle  to  London  from  Edin- 
burgh is  mostly  right,  and  I  have  settled  it  must  be  the  way  you 
write.  Lady  A.,  whose  kind  intentions  and  endeavours  cannot  be 
questioned,  seems  particularly  anxious  we  should  both  profit  by 
this  Edinburgh  conveyance.  My  answer  is  *  No  ;  with  thanks.' 
What  pleasure  or  profit  they  would  get  by  it  is  not  apparent ;  but 
any  way,  we  have  to  stand  by  the  above  decision,  which  I  see  you 
think  the  best  for  various  reasons. 

An  unpleasant  state  of  things !  But  there  is  one 
remedy  for  all  evils.  The  occasion  of  the  '  rifts  '  in  Car- 
lyle's  life  was  to  be  removed  for  ever  in  the  ensuing 
spring. 

Jownal, 

May  6,  1857. — Monday,  May  4,  at  Paris,  died  Lady  Ashburton, 
a  great  and  irrexDarable  sorrow  to  me,  yet  with  some  beautiful  con- 
solations in  it  too  ;  a  thing  that  fills  all  my  mind  since  yesterday 
afternoon  that  Milnes  came  to  me  with  the  sad  news,  which  I  had 
never  once  anticipated,  though  warned  sometimes  vaguely  to  do 
so.  '  God  sanctify  my  sorrow,'  as  the  old  pious  phrase  went.  To 
her  I  believe  it  is  a  great  gain  ;  and  the  exit  has  in  it  much  of 
noble  beauty  as  well  as  pure  sadness  worthy  of  such  a  woman. 
Adieu !  adieu  !  Her  work — call  it  her  grand  and  noble  endurance 
of  want  of  work — is  all  done  ! 

He  was  present  at  the  funeral,  at  Lord  Ashburton's 
particular  entreaty.  It  seemed  like  taking  leave  of  the 
most  precious  possession  which  had  belonged  to  him  in 
the  world.  A  few  days  after,  the  23rd  of  May,  he  writes 
to  his  brother  John  : — 

I  got  a  great  blow  by  that  death  you  alluded  to,  which  was  to- 
tally unexpected  to  me  ;  and  the  thought  of  it  widening  ever  more, 
as  I  think  further  of  it,  is  likely  to  be  a  heaviness  of  heart  to  me 
for  a  long  time  coming.  I  have  indeed  lost  such  a  friend  as  I 
never  had,  nor  am  again  in  the  least  likelihood  to  have,  in  this 
stranger  world  ;  a  magnanimous  and  beautiful  soul  which  had  fur- 
nished the  English  earth  and  made  it  homelike  to  me  in  many 


Death  of  Ijidy  Ashhurion.  159 

ways  is  not  now  horc.     Not  since  onr  mother's  death  has  there 
been  to  me  anything  resembling  it. 

Many  years  later,  on  casuall}^  hearing  some  one  de- 
scribe Lady  A.  in  a  way  that  interested  him,  he  notes : — 

A  sketch  true  in  every  feature  I  perceived,  as  painted  on  the 
mind  of  Mrs.  L  ;  nor  was  that  a  character  quite  simple  to 
read.  On  the  contrary,  since  Lady  Harriet  died  I  have  never 
heard  another  that  did  so  read  it.  Very  strange  to  me.  A  tragic 
Lady  Harriet,  deeply  though  she  veiled  herself  in  smiles,  in  light, 
gay  humour  and  drawing-room  wit,  which  she  had  much  at  com- 
mand. Essentially  a  most  veracious  soul  too.  Noble  and  gifted  by 
nature,  had  Fortune  Lut  granted  any  real  career.  She  was  the 
greatest  lady  of  rank  I  ever  saw,  with  the  soul  of  a  princess  and 
captainess  had  there  been  any  career  i^ossible  to  her  but  that  fash- 
ionable one. 

After  this  the  days  went  on  with  sombre  uniformity, 
Mrs.  Carlyle  still  feeble  and  growing  indeed  yearly  weaker, 
Carlyle  toiling  on  in  his '  mud  element,'  driving  his  way 
throngh  it,  hardly  seeing  anyone,  and  riding  for  three 
hours  every  afternoon.  lie  had  called  his  liorse  Fritz. 
*He  was  a  very  clever  fellow,'  he  said  of  him  to  me,  '  was 
much  attaclied  to  me,  and  understood  my  ways.  He 
caught  sight  in  Palace  Yard  of  King  Richard's  horse, 
clearly  perceived  that  it  was  a  horse,  and  was  greatly  in- 
terested in  it.'  *  Ah,  Fritz,'  he  once  apostrophised  him, 
'  you  don't  know  all  yonr  good  fortune.  You  were  well 
brought  up  to  know  and  do  your  duty.  Nobody  ever  told 
you  any  lies  about  some  one  else  that  had  done  it  for  you.' 
He  wrote  few  letters,  his  mother  no  longer  living  to  claim 
his  time.  It  was  only  on  occasion  that  he  gave  anyone  a 
lengthened  account  of  himself.  This  is  to  liis  brother 
John : — 

Chelsea  :  June  11,  1857. 

Probably  I  am  rather  better  in  health  ;  the  industrious  riding 

on  this  excellent  horse  sometimes  seems  to  myself  to  be  slowly 

telling  on  me ;  but  I  am  habitually  in  sombre,  mournful  mood, 

conscious  of  great  weakness,  a  defeated  kind  of  creature,  with  A 


160  Carlyle^  Life  in  London. 

right  good  load  of  sorrow  hanging  on  me,  and  no  goal  that  looks 
very  glorious  to  aim  towards  now  within  sight.  All  my  days  and 
hours  go  to  that  sad  task  of  mine.  At  it  I  keep  weakly  grubbing 
and  puddling,  weakly  but  steadily ;  try  to  make  daily  some  little 
way  as  now  almost  the  one  thing  useful.  I  refuse  all  invitations 
whatsoever  for  several  reasons,  and  may  be  defined  as  a  mute 
solitary  being  at  present,  comparable  to  an  owl  on  the  house- 
top in  several  respects.  The  truth  is,  I  had  enough  before,  and 
I  have  had  privately  a  great  loss  and  sorrow  lately  as  it  were  of 
the  one  genuine  friend  I  had  acquired  in  these  parts,  whose  noble- 
ness was  more  precious  to  me  than  I  knew  ;  a  loss  not  in  any 
measure  to  be  repaired  in  the  world  henceforth.  That  of  old 
Johnson,  common  to  old  men  in  this  world,  often  comes  into  my 
head.  '  Been  delayed  till  most  of  those  whom  I  wished  to  please 
are  sunk  into  the  grave,  and  success  and  failure  are  empty  sounds  ; 
I  therefore  dismiss  it  with  frigid  indifference  ; '  but  will  do  the 
best  I  can  all  the  same.  In  fact,  I  do  make  a  little  way,  and  shall 
perhaps  live  to  see  the  thing  honestly  done  after  all.  Jane  is  de- 
cidedly better  ;  gets  out  daily,  &c.,  but  is  still  as  weak  as  possible  ; 
and  though  we  have  the  perfection  of  weather,  warm,  yet  never 
sultry,  the  poor  mistress  does  not  yet  get  even  into  her  old 
strength  for  walking  or  the  like.  She  went  out  to  East  Hamp- 
stead.  Marquis  of  Downshire's  people,  beyond  Windsor,  and  got 
so  much  good  of  her  three  days  there  I  have  been  desirous  she 
could  get  to  Scotland  or  somewither  for  a  couple  of  months,  and 
she  did  seem  to  have  some  such  intention.  Sunny  Bank  ^  the 
place  ;  but  that  has  misgone,  I  fear.  Meanwhile,  she  is  very  busy 
ornamenting  the  garden,  poor  little  soul ;  has  two  China  seats,  spec- 
ulates even  upon  an  awning,  or  quasi-tent,  against  the  blazes  of 
July  that  are  coming,  which,  you  see,  are  good  signs.  Poor  Doug- 
las Jerrold,  we  hear  incidentally  this  morning,  is  dead  ;  an  '  acrid 
philanthropist,'  last  of  the  '  London  wits.'  I  hope  the  last.  A 
man  not  extremely  valuable  in  my  sight ;  but  an  honest  creature 
withal ;  and  he  has  bade  us  Adieu  for  ever  ! 

'  The  Frederick '  work  did  not  grow  more  easy.  The 
story,  as  it  expanded,  became  the  history  of  contemporary 
Europe,  and  even  of  the  world,  while  Carlyle,  like  a  genu- 
ine craftsman  as  he  was,  never  shirked  a  difficulty,  never 
threw  a  false  skin  over  hoUow  places,  or  wrote  a  sentence 

^  Haddington . 


Pro(jrem  with   •  Freiierick.'*  161 

the  truth  of  wliicli  he  liacl  not  sifted.  One  day  he  de- 
scribed hiin:*elf  as  *  busy  drawing  water  for  many  hours 
from  the  deep  Brandenburg  well,'  and  realising  nothing 
*  but  a  coil  of  wet  rope.'  Still  progress  was  made  in  July 
of  this  year  1857.  The  opening  chapters  were  getting 
into  print.  Hq  did  not  himself  stir  from  London.  The 
weather  indoors  had  grown  calmer  after  the  occasion  of 
difference  was  gone,  and  the  gentle  companionship  of 
early  days,  never  voluntarily  impaired  on  his  part,  had  par- 
tially returned.  But  change  was  necessary  for  her  health. 
Her  friends  at  Sunny  Bank  were  really  eager  to  have  her, 
and  he  was  glad  to  send  her  oflfT  He  himself  travelled 
generally  third  class  on  railway  journeys.  She,  weak 
though  she  was,  insisted  on  going  second.  Carlyle  saw  hef 
into  the  train.  She  had  a  wretched  journey,  and  his  first 
letter,  after  liearing  of  her  misfortunes,  was  as  tender  as  a 
lover's : — 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle^  Sunny  Bank. 

Chelsea :  July  9,  1857. 

Oh,  what  a  passage  !  My  poor  little  Groody  Goody,  Oh,  dear ! 
oh,  dear  !  I  was  miserable  all  the  way  home  to  leave  you  in  such 
a  hole,  the  rather  as  I  noticed,  just  when  you  were  rolling  off,  one 
of  the  first-class  carriages  behind  you  with  not  a  soul  in  it.  You 
shall  go  no  more  into  any  wretched  saving  of  that  kind,  never 
more  while  we  have  money  at  all.  Remember  that.  I  consoled 
myself  with  thinking  most  of  your  neighbours  would  go  out  in  the 
Fen  country  and  leave  you  with  at  least  room  and  air.  But  it  has 
been  far  otherwise.  Good  heavens !  all  the  windows  closed ! 
Tobacco  and  the  other  stew  all  night !  My  heart  is  sore  for  my 
poor  weak  woman.     Never  again  :  should  I  sell  my  shirt  to  buy 

)U  a  better  place.  Lie  still  and  be  quiet ;  only  saunter  out  into 
the  garden,  into  the  balmy,  natal  air,  and  kind  though  sad  old 
memories.  "We  are  doing  well  enough  here.  By  God's  favour — 
of  which  we  have  had  much  surely,  though  in  stem  forms — I  will 
get  rid  of  tliis  deplorable  task  in  a  not  disgi-aceful  manner.  Then 
for  the  rest  of  our  life  we  will  be  more  to  one  another  than  ever 
we  were,  if  it  jUoase  Heaven. 
Vol.  IV.-a 


162  CarlyWs  Life  m  London. 

I  have  looked  at  the  birds  daily  ; '  all  right ;  and  daily  bestowed 
a  bunch  of  chick  weed  on  the  poor  wretches,  who  sing  gratefully 
in  return.  Nero  ran  with  me  through  the  Brompton  solitudes  last 
night,  merry  as  a  maltman.  Always  on  coming  home  he  trips  up 
to  your  room  till  I  call  him  back.  I  wish  he  would  give  it  over, 
for  it  makes  me  wae.  I  have  been  mainly  under  the  awning  all 
day,  and  got  my  sheets — three  of  them — corrected.  God  kaep 
thee  ever,  dearest ;  whom  else  have  I  in  the  world  ?  Be  good,  be 
quiet,  and  write.  T.  Caklylb. 

The  prohibition  against  '  presents '  had  not  been  re- 
scinded. 

This  is  your  birthday  (he  wrote  on  July  14).  God  gi'ant  us  only 
many  of  them.  I  think  now  and  then  I  could  dispense  with  all 
other  blessings.  Our  years  have  been  well  laden  with  sorrows,  a 
quite  sufficient  ballast  allowed  us  ;  but  while  we  are  together  here 
there  is  always  a  world  left.  I  am  not  to  send  you  any  gifts  other 
than  this  scrap  of  paper  ;  but  I  might  give  you  California  and  not 
mean  more  than  perhaps  I  do.  And  so  may  there  be  many  years, 
and  (as  poor  Irving  used  to  say)  the  worst  of  them  over. 

Such  halcyon  weather  could  not  continue  without  an 
occasional  break.  The  air  grew  hot ;  proof-sheets  were 
now  and  then  troublesome.  Photographers  worried  him 
to  sit  for  their  c;allerj  of  illustrious  men,  offering  to  send 
their  artist  to  Chelsea  for  the  purpose.  The  '  incompara- 
ble artist '  was  forbidden  to  come  near  the  place.  Sleep 
was  irregular ;  solitude  was  trying.    . 

I  do  pretty  well,  considering  (he  said  after  a  fortnight  of  it). 
All  I  complain  of  is  gloom,  and  I  do  not  know^  how  I  should  get 
well  rid  of  that  at  present  even  if  /  had  you  to  throw  some  portion 
of  it  upon  !  Tea  is  the  gloomiest  of  all  my  meals.  No  Goody 
there  !     I  am  thankful  even  to  Nero  for  reminding  me  of  you. 

At  last  there  came  interruption  of  work,  from  the  need 
of  revising  the  '  Latter-day  Pamphlets  '  for  a  new  edition. 
He  was  not  well,  and  there  came  one  of  the  old  cross  iits, 
and  even  Nero  himself  fell  out  of  favour. 

I  Mrs.  Carlyle's  canaries. 


Solit^ide  in  Ckeyne  Boic,  163 

7b  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  Jnly  26,  1857. 
To  confess  truth,  I  have  had  for  abont  a  week  past  a  fit  of  vil- 
lanoiis  headaches,  feverishness,  &c.,  which  I  at  first  attributed  to 
oxtail  soup,  but  now  discover  to  be  cold  caught  sitting  in  the  sweep 
of  the  wind  under  the  awning.  I  have  been  at  proofs  again  all  day. 
I  am  getting  on  slow,  like  an  old  spavined  horse,  but  never  giving 
in.  The  gloom  of  my  soul  is  perfect  at  times,  for  I  have  feverish 
headaches,  and  no  human  company,  or  absolutely  none  that  is  not 
ugly  to  me.  One  hope  remains — that  of  working  out  of  this  sad 
element,  getting  my  book  done,  and  quitting  London,  I  often 
tliink,  or  as  good  as  quitting  it,  for  the  sake  of  fresh  air  and  dairy 
produce  in  abundance.  Nero  is  already  grunting  for  a  sally  out. 
He  lost  me  yesternight,  the  intolerable  messin  that  he  is.  I  was 
hunying  home  from  a  long  walk,  full  of  reflec  ions  not  pleasant. 
At  the  bottom  of  Cadogan  Place  eleven  o'clock  struck :  time  to 
hurry  home  for  porridge.  But  the  vermin  was  wanting ;  no  whis- 
tle would  bring  him.  I  had  to  go  back  as  far  as  Wilton  Orescent. 
There  the  miserable  quadruped  appeared,  and  I  nearly  bullied  the 
life  out  of  him.  He  licked  my  milk-dish  at  home  with  the  *  same 
relish.'  On  the  whole,  however,  he  is  a  real  nuisance  and  absurd- 
ity in  this  house. 

The  relapse  happily  did  not  last.  The  cold,  or  whatever 
it  was,  departed,  and  the  gloom  retired.  The  canaries 
had  their  chickweed,  *and  said  "Thank  you  kindly"  as 
plain  as  could  be  sung.'  Friends  ceased  to  be  ugly  again, 
and  Xero  ceased  to  be  a  nuisance.  '  Farie,'  he  said,  'rode 
with  me  yesternight.  Poor  Farie ;  very  honest,  gentle- 
manlike, friendly,  more  like  a  human  creature  than  any- 
body I  see  at  present.'  '  Nero  came  into  the  garden  and 
stationed  himself  on  the  warm  flags  to  inquire  about 
dirmer.'  His  wife's  comfort,  he  knew,  would  depend  on 
the  accounts  which  he  sent  about  himself  and  he  made 
the  best  that  he  could  of  everything.  She  was  paying 
visits  which  were  not  all  pleasant.  He  was  eager  for  every 
detail. 

I  am  glad,  he  said,  you  make  your  bits  of  complaints  freely  to 
me  ;  if  not  to  me,  to  whom,  else  now  alive  on  the  earth  ?    Oh  ! 


164:  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

never  distmst  me,  as  the  Devil  sometimes  tempts  your  poor  heart 
to  do.  I  know  you  for  an  honest  soul,  far  too  sharp-tempered,  but 
true  to  the  bone ;  and  if  I  ever  am  or  was  unkind  to  you,  God 
knows  it  was  very  far  against  my  purpose.  Do  not  distrust  me. 
Tell  me  everything,  and  do  not  mind  how  weak  you  are  before  me. 
I  know  your  strength  and  your  weakness  pretty  well  by  this  time. 
Poor  little  Goody !  Sha'n't  I  be  glad  to  see  you  back  again  ? 
Yes  ;  for  a  considerable  number  of  reasons. 

For  more  reasons  than  one,  but  for  one  especially.  Car- 
lyle's  costnme  was  always  peculiar :  so  peculiar,  thanks 
to  his  Ecclefechan  tailor,  that  it  was  past  being  anxious 
about.  Who  that  knew  Carlyle  would  care  what  clothes 
he  chose  to  wear  ?  But  there  were  degrees  even  in  these 
singular  articles. 

I  perceive,  he  said,  you  will  have  to  set  earnestly  about  getting 
me  some  wearing  apparel  when  you  come  home.  I  have  fallen 
quite  shameful.  I  shall  be  naked  altogether  if  you  don't  mind. 
Think  of  riding  most  of  the  summer  with  the  aristocracy  of  the 
country,  whenever  I  went  into  Hyde  Park,  in  a  duffle  jacket  which 
literally  was  part  of  an  old  dressing-gown  a  year  gone.  Is  the  like 
on  record  ? 

The  sense  that  '  Frederick  '  was  actually  getting  itself 
executed  had  tended  wonderfully  to  soothe  down  the  irri- 
tated humours.  Even  a  night  made  sleepless  by  the  heat 
of  the  weather  had  its  compensations.  On  August  5  he 
wrote : — 

Sunday  I  started  broad  awake  at  3  a.m.,  went  downstairs,  out, 
smoked  a  cigar  on  a  stool :  have  not  seen  so  lovely,  sad,  and  grand 
a  summer  weather  scene  for  twenty  years  back.  Trees  stood  all 
as  if  cast  in  bronze,  not  an  aspen  leaf  stirring ;  sky  was  a  silver 
mirror,  getting  yellowish  to  the  north-east ;  and  only  one  big  star, 
star  of  the  morning,  visible  in  the  increasing  light.  This  is  a  very 
grand  place,  this  world,  too.     It  did  me  no  ill.     Enough  ! 

The  world  was  well ;  all  was  well ;  for  his  own  writing 
even  was  turning  out  better  than  he  expected,  though  his 
opinion  of  it  varied  from  day  ta  day. 


Mrs.  CarlyUs  Crifkn»tn  of  '  Frcikrkk:        1C5 

The  worst  is,  he  said,  there  is  not  the  lieart  of  a  jay  piat  in  me, 
to  use  Jamie's  phrase.  I  want,  above  all,  a  light  mood  of  spirits 
to  gallop  through  such  topics  ;  and,  alas  !  where  is  that  to  come 
from  ?  We  must  just  do  without  it.  I  am  well  aware  mourning 
and  kicking  at  the  pricks  is  not  the  way  to  mend  matters. 

Tlie  news  of  the  Sepoy  rebellion  coming  in  this  summer 
of  course  affected  Carlyle,  more,  liowever,  with  sorrow 
than  surprise.  *  Tongue  cannot  speak,'  he  wrote,  '  the 
horrors  that  were  done  on  the  English  by  those  mutinous 
hyaenas.  Allow  hyaenas  to  mutiny  and  strange  things  will 
follow.'  But  he  had  long  thought  that  *  many  British  in- 
terests besides  India  were  on  a  baddisli  road.'  The  best 
that  he  could  do  was  to  get  on  with  his  own  work,  and  not 
peraiit  his  attention  to  be  drawn  from  it.  Mrs.  Carlyle 
greatly  approved  of  the  opening  of  *  Frederick.'  She 
recognised  at  once  the  superiority  of  it  to  any  other  work 
that  he  had  done,  and  she  told  him  so.  He  was  greatly 
delighted  ;  he  called  her  remarks  the  only  bit  of  human 
criticism  which  he  had  heard  from  anyone. 

It  would  be  worth  while  to  write  books  [he  said]  if  mankind 
would  read  them  as  you  do.  From  the  fii-st  discovery  of  me  you 
have  i)redicted  good  in  a  confident  manner  ;  all  the  iame  whether 
the  world  were  singing  chorus,  or  no  part  of  the  world  dreaming 
of  such  a  thing,  but  of  much  the  reverse. 

He  was  essentially  peaceable  the  whole  time  of  her  ab- 
sence ;  a  flash  might  come  now  and  then,  but  of  summer 
sheet-lightning,  which  meant  no  harm.  Even  distant 
cocks  and  wandering  organ-grinders  got  nothing  but  a 
passing  anathema. 

I  am  better  to-day,  he  wrote  on  September  1,  after  he  had  been 
for  two  months  alone.  I  hope  you  do  not  mind  transient  grum- 
bling, knowing  the  nature  of  the  beast  by  this  time.  Yellow  scoun- 
drels [the  organ  boys] ,  though  I  si)eak  of  them  so  often,  really  are 
not  troublesome  ;  very  many  days  they  do  not  oome  at  all,  and  if 
I  were  always  tolerably  well  I  should  care  little  alnmt  them.  A 
young  lady,  very  tempestuous  on  the  piano  at  one  of  those  open 


166  Cadyle-^  Life  in   London. 

back  windows,  really  does  me  no  ill  almost ;  nor  does  your  friend 
with  the  accordion.  He  rather  tickles  me,  like  a  nigger  song ; 
such  an  enthusiasm  is  in  him  about  nothing  at  all ;  and  when  he 
plays  *  Ye  banks  and  braes,'  I  almost  like  him.  Never  mind  me 
and  my  grumblings. 

A  few  days  after  this  she  came  home  to  him,  and  '  there 
was  joy  in  Kero  and  the  canaries,  and  in  creatures  more 
important.'  Work  went  on  witliout  interruption.  Fritz 
gave  increasing  satisfaction,  taking  better  care  of  his  rider 
tlian  his  rider  could  have  taken  of  himself,  and  showing 
fresh  signs  of  the  excellence  of  his  education.  Xot  onlj 
was  the  moral  part  of  him  what  it  should  be,  but  he  had 
escaped  the  special  snare  of  London  life.  '  He  had  not 
been  brought  up  to  think  that  the  first  duty  of  a  horse 
was  to  say  something  witty.'  The  riding  was  late  in  the 
afternoon,  and  lasted  long  after  dusk,  along  the  suburban 
roads,  amidst  the  glare  of  the  red  and  green  railway  lamps 
at  the  bridges,  and  the  shrieks  and  roars  of  the  passing 
trains ;  Fritz  never  stumbling  or  starting,  or  showing  the 
Icnst  sign  of  alarm. 

The  Scotch  do  not  observe  times  and  seasons,  and 
Christmas  in  London  to  so  true  a  Scot  as  Carlyle  was  a 
periodic  nuisance.  Tlie  printers  suspended  work,  and 
proof-sheets  hung  fire.  English  holidays  might  have  been 
beautiful  things  in  old  days,  in  country  manors  and  farms; 
but  in  modern  Chelsea  they  meant  husbands  staggering 
about  the  streets,  and  their  miserable  wives  trying  to  drag 
them  home  before  the  last  of  the  wages  was  spent  on  beer 
and  gin. 

All  mortals  [Carlyle  wrote  on  December  28]  are  tumbling  about 
ill  a  state  of  drunken  saturnalia,  delirium,  or  quasi-delirium,  ac- 
cording to  their  several  sorts ;  a  very  strange  method  of  thanking 
God  for  sending  them  a  Eedeemer ;  a  set  singularly  worth  '  re- 
deeming,' too,  you  would  say.  I  spent  Christmas  and  the  two 
days  following  in  giim  contention  all  day  each  time  with  the  most 
refractory  set  of  proof-sheets  I  expect  in  this  work ;  the  sternly 


Mrs.  CiU'lyU's  ILiAiUh.  1H7 

sad  remembrance  of  another  Christmas  [when  his  mother  died] 
present  to  me  also  at  all  moments,  which  made  a  strange  combina- 
tion, peculiarly  tragic  when  I  had  time  to  see  it  from  the  distance, 
like  a  man  set  to  whittle  cherry-stones  and  toy  boxes  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Shadow  of  Death. 

Indoors,  happily,  the  old  affectionate  days  had  come 
back — the  old  tone,  the  old  confidences.  It  had  really 
heen  as  he  had  said  in  the  suminer,  'They  were  more  to 
one  another  than  they  liad  ever  been.'  But  Mrs.  Carlyle 
suffered  more  than  she  had  yet  done  from  the  winter  cold, 
and  a  shadow  of  another  kind  now  darkened  the  prospect, 
lie  had  gone  for  three  or  four  days  to  the  now  solitary 
Grange,  at  Lord  Ash  burton's  earnest  entreaty.  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle was  to  have  gone  with  him,  but  could  not  venture. 
He  had  been  most  unwilling  to  leave  her,  but  she  insisted 
that  he  must. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  January  23,  1858. 

Happily,  my  poor  Jane  is  somewhat  better.  She  had  a  little 
improved  on  Friday  or  Saturday,  which  made  her  urge  the  shock- 
ing? unpoliteness  of  breaking  an  express  promise,  and  despatch  me 
at  the  eleventh  hour.  She  professed  to  be  still  further  improved 
when  I  came  home,  and,  in  fact,  does  sleep  perceptibly  better, 
though  still  very  ill,  and  eats  also  a  little  better ;  though  her 
cough,  I  perceive,  is  rather  woi*se  than  before  ;  and,  in  fact,  she 
is  weak  and  heavy-laden  to  a  degree,  and  nothing  but  an  invincible 
spirit  could  keep  her  up  at  all.  It  was  the  first  day  of  the  thaw 
when  she  discovered  her  cold,  but  I  doubt  not  it  had  been  getting 
ready  in  the  cold  days  before  ;  indeed,  there  were  some  wretched 
operatives  here,  busy  upon  the  grate  and  its  back  and  its  tiles 
down  below,  with  whom  she  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  and  vexa- 
tion. They,  I  think,  had  mainly  done  it.  I  had,  at  any  rate,  a 
considerable  notion  to  kick  their  lime-kits  and  them  completely 
out  of  the  house,  but  abstained  from  interfering  at  all,  lest  explo> 
sioii  sliould  arise.  Poor  little  soul !  I  have  seldom  seen  anybody 
weaker,  hardly  ever  anybody  keeping  (mfoot  on  weaker  terms.  But 
if  slio  could  only  continue  to  have  half  sleep  instead  of  only  a 
fourth  or  even  lower  proportion.  I  should  expect  her  to  be  able  to 
get  out  again  on  good  days,  and  so  to  recover  soon  anything  ihe 


1(58  Cavlyle'8  Life  in  London. 

has  lost  lately.  She  has  a  particular  pain  about  a  handbreadth 
below  the  heart,  rather  sore  to  the  touch — on  pressure  not  sore  at 
all,  if  not  stirred,  nor  seemingly  connected  with  coughing  other- 
wise than  by  the  mere  stir  produced.  This  is  now  some  three 
weeks  old,  and  vexes  her  somewhat.  T.  yesterday — judicious, 
kind  man  ! — assured  her  lie  knew  that,  and  it  was  an  inflammation 
of  the  pleura  Just  getting  under  way.  If  you  can  form  any  guess 
about  it  by  this  description,  you  may  tell  me.  Affectionate  regards 
to  all.  — Yours  ever,  T.  Caelyle. 

House  worries,  with  servants,  &c.,  did  not  improve 
Mrs.  Carljle.  Fritz  liad  been  left  at  the  Grange.  Car- 
Ivle,  driven  to  liis  feet  as^ain,  had  lost  his  own  chief  com- 
fort,  and  '  Frederick  '  had  to  be  continued  in  more  indif- 
ferent spirits.     In  the  spring  he  writes  to  John  again  :— 

Chelsea  :  March  23,  1858. 
I  am  not  worth  seeing,  nor  is  anybody  much  worth  being  seen 
by  me  in  my  present  mood  and  predicament.  I  never  was  so  soli- 
tary intrinsically.  I  refuse  all  invitations,  and,  except  meeting 
people  in  the  street,  have  next  to  no  communication  with  my  ex- 
ternal fellow-creatures.  I  walk  with  difficulty  long  snatches, 
nothing  but  Nero  attending  me.  I  begin  to  find  I  must  have  my 
horse  back  again  one  of  these  days.  My  poor  inner  man  reminds 
me  that  such  will  be  my  duty.  I  am  sorry  to  report  that  since 
yesterday  my  poor  Jane  has  caught  new  cold,  and  is  flung  down 
again,  worse,  probably,  than  before.  She  had  never  sunk  so  weak 
this  year,  and  we  hoped  when  the  singularly  good  weather  came 
it  was  all  over.  But  within  this  day  or  two  there  has  been  a 
change  of  temperature,  and  this  is  where  we  are.  '  No  sleep  at  all ' 
last  night ;  nothing  but  the  sofa  and  silence  for  my  poor  partner. 
"We  are  changing  our  servant  too  ;  but  how  the  new  one  (will 
answer) — a  Scotch  Inverness  subject  of  promising  gemuth,  but  in- 
experienced in  house-work — is  somewhat  of  a  problem.  Few 
people  that  I  have  seen  suffer  their  allotment  in  this  world  in  a 
handsomer  manner.     I  still  hope  this  relapse  will  not  last  long. 

To  the  Same. 

April  15. 

Our  weather  has  suddenly  got  warm.  Jane  is  now  out,  poor 
little  soul.  She  would  have  been  joyful,  and  on  the  road  to  well 
again,  had  it  not  been  for  that  Devil's  brood  of  house  servants. 


London  Servants,  169 

Aime  went  away  a  fortnight  ago— no  further  good  to  be  had  of 
Anne.  Better  that  she  should  go.  Then  came  the  usual  muster 
and  choice  for  poor  Missus — great/as/t,  fidget,  and  at  last  a  simple- 
looking  Scotch  lass  preferred,  who  did  not  know  her  work^  but  whose 
physiognomy  pleased  hugely  in  the  proper  quarter.  Much  new 
fash  in  consequence  for  the  two  weeks  gone — patient  teaching  of 
the  simpleton,  animated  by  hope  of  honesty,  veracity,  aflfectionate 
mind,  &c.,  Ac,  the  whole  of  which  fell  uix)n  poor  Jane  ;  for  I  had 
nothing  to  do  in  it  except  hold  my  peace,  and  rejoice  in  such 
prospects  of  all  the  virtues  in  a  simple  form.  Night  before  last 
the  poor  Dame  did  not  sleep,  seemed  sad  too.  On  pressing  into 
her  I  found  the  simpleton  of  virtues  had  broken  into  bottomless 
hfing,  '  drinking  of  cream  on  the  road  upstairs,'  &c.,  and  that,  in 
short,  it  was  hopeless.  And  while  we  yet  spoke  of  it,  a  poor  char- 
woman, used  to  the  house,  knocked  at  the  room  door,  and  entered 
with  the  sudden  news  that  our  simpleton  was  oflf,  bag  and  baggage, 
plus  a  sovereign  that  had  just  been  advanced  her.  Gone,  ten  p.m., 
and  had  left  the  pass  key  with  the  said  charwoman. 

My  poor  little  sick  partner.  I  declare  it  is  heart-breaking  for 
her  sake,  disgusting^  otherwise,  to  a  high  degree,  and  dirtier  for  the 
mind  than  even  brushing  of  boots  oneself  would  be  for  the  body. 
But  our  Dame  is  not  to  be  beaten  quite ;  has  already  impro^-ised  a 
new  arrangement — unhappily  no  sleep  almost  yet,  and  we  must  help 
her  all  we  can. 

In  spite  of  anxieties  and  *  sordid  miseries,'  the  two' 
volumes  of  'Frederick'  meanwhile  drew  to  completion. 
Carlyle  (for  liim)  was  amazingly  patient,  evidently  for  his 
wife's  sake  liaving  laid  strong  constraint  on  liimself.  His 
complaints,  when  he  did  complain,  were  of  a  liuman  reason- 
able kind.  Neuberg  was  most  assiduous,  and  another  young 
intelligent  admirer — Mr.  Larkin,'  who  lived  next  door  to 
him — had  volunteered  his  services,  which  were  most  grate- 
fully recognised.  '  My  excellent  helper,'  he  calls  Mr.  Lar- 
kin,  '  in  these  printing  enterprises,  makes  maps,  indexes, 
&c.,  *fec.,  makes  everything;  in  fact,  one  of  the  best  men 
I  have  almost  ever  seen,  and  a  very  indispensable  blessing 
to  me.'     Much  went  against  him — or  so  he  thought. 

*  Ltttert  and  Memorial*^  vol.  it  p.  114, 


170  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

April  15. 
Nothing  (he  said),  will  ever  reconcile  me  to  these  miserable  iron 
pens.  Often  in  writing  the  beautiful  book  now  on  hand  I  remind 
myself  of  the  old  Spaniard  who  had  to  do  his  on  leather  with  a 
dagger/  and,  in  fact,  I  detest  writing  more  and  more,  and  expect 
fairly  to  end  it  if  I  can  ever  finish  this — but  all  friends  be  soft  with 
me,  for  I  declare  myself  hard  bested  in  the  present  season. 

By  the  first  of  May  the  printers  had  their  last '  copy.' 
By  the  end  of  May  all  was  in  type.  In  the  second  week 
in  June  the  first  instalment  of  the  work  on  which  he  liad 
been  so  busy  toiling  was  complete  and  off  his  hands,  wait- 
ing to  be  published  in  the  autumn.  For  six  years  he  liad 
been  labouring  over  it.  In  1851  he  had  begun  seriously 
to  think  about  the  subject.  In  1852  he  made  his  tour  to 
Berlin  and  the  battle-fields.  Ever  since  he  had  lain  as 
in  eclipse,  withdrawn  from  all  society  save  that  of  his 
most  intimate  friends.  The  effort  had  been  enormous. 
He  was  sixty-three  years  old,  and  the  furnace  could  be 
no  longer  heated  to  its  old  temperature.  Yet  he  had 
thrown  into  the  task  all  the  strength  he  had  left;  and 
now,  although  the  final  verdict  has  long  been  pronounced 
on  this  book,  in  Germany  especially,  where  the  merits  of 
it  can  be  best  appreciated,  I  must  say  a  Yevj  few  words 
myself  about  it,  and  on  Carlyle's  historical  method  gen- 
erally. 

History  is  the  account  of  the  actions  of  men ;  and  in 
*  actions '  are  comprehended  the  thoughts,  opinions,  mo- 
tives, impulses  of  the  actors  and  of  the  circumstances  in 
which  their  work  was  executed.  The  actions  without  the 
motives  are  nothing,  for  they  may  be  interpreted  in  many 
ways,  and  can  only  be  understood  in  their  causes.  If 
'Hamlet'  or  'Lear'  was  exact  to  outward  fact — were 
they  and  their  fellow-actors  on  the  stage  exactly  such  as 
Shakespeare  describes   them,  and   if   they  did   the   acts 

*  The  Araucana^  by  Alonzo  de  Ercilla, 


Carlyle  as  an  Historian.  171 

which  he  assigns  to  them,  that  was  perfect  history ;  and 
what  we  call  history  is  only  valuable  as  it  approaches  to 
that  pattern.  To  say  that  the  characters  of  men  cannot 
be  thus  completely  known,  that  their  inner  nature  is  be- 
yond our  reach,  that  the  dramatic  portraiture  of  things  is 
only  possible  to  po^ry,  is  to  say  that  history  ought  not  to 
be  written,  for  the  inner  nature  of  the  persons  of  whom  it 
speaks  is  the  essential  thing  about  them  ;  and,  in  fact,  the 
historian  assumes  that  he  does  know  it,  for  his  work  with- 
out it  is  pointless  and  colourless.  And  yet  to  penetrate 
really  into  the  hearts  and  souls  of  men,  to  give  each  his 
due,  to  represent  him  as  he  appeared  at  his  best,  to  him- 
self and  not  to  his  enemies,  to  sympathize  in  the  collision 
of  principles  with  each  party  in  turn ;  to  feel  as  they  felt, 
to  think  as  they  thought,  and  to  reproduce  the  various  be- 
liefs, the  acquirements,  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  an- 
other age,  is  a  task  which  requires  gifts  as  great  or  greater 
than  those  of  the  greatest  dramatists ;  for  all  is  required 
which  is  required  of  the  dramatist,  with  the  obligation  to 
truth  of  ascertained  fact  besides.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  historical  works  of  the  highest  order  are  so  scanty. 
The  faculty  itself,  the  imaginative  and  reproductive  in- 
sight, is  among  the  rarest  of  human  qualities.  The  moral 
determination  to  use  jt  for  pui-poses  of  truth  only  is  rarer 
still — nay,  it  is  but  in  particular  ages  of  the  world  that 
such  work  can  be  produced  at  all.  The  historians  of 
genius  themselves,  too,  are  creatures  of  their  own  time, 
and  it  is  only  at  periods  when  men  of  intellect  have 
*  swallowed  formulas,'  when  conventional  and  established 
ways  of  thinking  have  ceased  to  satisfy,  that,  if  they  are 
serious  and  conscientious,  they  are  able  *  to  sympathize 
with  opposite  sides.' 

It  is  said  that  history  is  not  of  individuals ;  that  the 
proper  concern  of  it  is  with  broad  masses  of  facts,  with 
tendencies  which  can  be  analysed  into  laws,  with  the  evo- 


172  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

liition  of  humanity  in  general.  Be  it  so — but  a  science 
can  make  progress  only  when  the  facts  are  completely  as- 
certained ;  and  before  any  facts  of  human  life  are  avail- 
able for  philosophy  we  must  have  those  facts  exactly  as 
they  were.  You  must  have  Hamlet  before  you  can  have 
a  theory  of  Hamlet,  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  more 
completely  we  know  the  truth  of  any  incident,  or  group  of 
incidents,  the  less  it  lends  itself  to  theory.  We  have  our 
religious  historians,  our  constitutional  historians,  our  philo- 
sophical historians ;  and  they  tell  their  stories  each  in 
their  own  way,  to  point  conclusions  which  they  have  be- 
gun by  assuming — but  the  conclusion  seems  plausible  only 
because  they  know  their  case  imperfectly,  or  because 
they  state  their  case  imperfectly.  The  writers  of  books 
are  Protestant  or  Catholic,  religious  or  atheistic,  des- 
potic or  Liberal ;  but  nature  is  neither  one  nor  the 
other,  but  all  in  turn.  E^ature  is  not  a  partisan,  but  out 
of  her  ample  treasure-house  she  produces  children  in  infi- 
nite variety,  of  which  she  is  equally  the  mother,  and  dis- 
owns none  of  them  ;  and  when,  as  in  Shakespeare,  nature 
is  represented  truly,  the  impressions  left  upon  the  mind 
do  not  adjust  themselves  to  any  philosophical  system. 
The  story  of  Hamlet  in  Saxo-Grammaticus  might  suggest 
excellent  commonplace  lessons  on  tlie  danger  of  supersti- 
tion, or  the  evils  of  uncertainty  in  the  law  of  succession 
to  the  crown,  or  the  absurdity  of  monarchical  government 
when  the  crown  can  be  the  prize  of  murder.  But  reflec- 
tions of  this  kind  would  suggest  themselves  only  where  the 
story  was  told  imperfectly,  and  because  it  w^as  told  imper- 
fectly. If  Shakespeare's  '  Hamlet '  be  the  true  version  of 
that  Denmark  catastrophe,  the  mind  passes  from  common- 
place moralising  to  the  tragedy  of  humanity  itself.  And 
it  is  certain  that  if  the  thing  did  not  occur  as  it  stands  in 
the  play,  yet  it  did  occur  in  some  similar  way,  and  that 
the  truth,  if  we  knew  it,  would  be  equally  affecting — 


Carlyle  a$  an  Historian.  173 

equally  unwilling  to  submit  to  any  representation  except 
the  nndoctrinal  and  dramatic. 

"What  I  mean  is  this,  that  whether  the  history  of  hu- 
manity can  be  treated  philosophically  or  not :  whether 
any  evolutionary  law  of  progress  can  be  traced  in  it  or 
not ;  the  facts  must  be  delineated  first  with  the  clearness 
and  fulness  which  we  demand  in  an  epic  poem' or  a  trag- 
edy. We  must  have  the  real  thing  before  we  can  have  a 
science  of  a  thing.  When  that  is  given,  those  who  like  it 
may  have  their  philosophy  of  history,  though  probably 
they  will  care  less  about  it ;  just  as  wise  men  do  not  ask 
for  theories  of  Hamlet,  but  are  satisfied  with  Hamlet  him- 
self. But  until  the  real  thing  is  given,  philosophical  his- 
tory is  but  an  idle  plaything  to  entertain  grown  children 
with. 

And  this  was  Carlyle's  special  gift — to  bring  dead  things 
and  dead  people  actually  back  to  life ;  to  make  the  past 
once  more  the  present,  and  to  show  us  men  and  women 
playing  their  parts  on  the  mortal  stage  as  real  flesh  and 
blood  human  creatures,  with  every  feature  which  he 
ascribes  to  them  authenticated,  not  the  most  trifling  inci- 
dent invented,  and  yet  as  a  result  with  figures  as  com- 
pletely alive  as  Shakespeare's  own.  Very  few  writei-s 
have  possessed  this  double  gift  of  accuracy  and  represen- 
tative power.  1  could  mention  only  two,  Thucydides  and 
Tacitus ;  and  Carlyle's  power  as  an  artist  is  greater  than 
either  of  theirs.  Lockhart  said,  when  he  read  *  Past  and 
Present,'  that,  except  Scott,  in  this  particular  function  no 
one  equalled  Carlyle.  I  would  go  farther,  and  say  that 
no  writer  in  any  age  had  equalled  him.  Dramatists,  nov- 
elists have  drawn  characters  with  Similar  vividness,  but  it 
is  the  inimitable  distinction  of  Carlyle  to  have  painted 
actual  persons,  with  as  much  life  in  them  as  novelists  have 
given  to  their  own  inventions,  to  which  they  might  ascribe 
what  traits  they  pleased.    He  worked  in  fetters — iu  the 


174  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

fetters  of  fact ;  yet,  in  this  life  of  Frederick,  the  king 
himself,  his  father,  his  sister,  his  generals,  his  friends, 
Yoltaire,  and  a  hundred  others,  all  the  chief  figures,  large 
and  small,  of  the  eighteenth  century,  pass  upon  the  stage 
once  more,  as  breathing  and  moving  men  and  women,  and 
yet  fixed  and  made  visible  eternally  by  the  genius  whicli 
has  summoned  them  from  their  graves.  A  fine  critic 
once  said  to  me  that  Carlyle's  '  Friedrich  Wilhelm '  was  as 
peculiar  and  original  as  Sterne's  '  Walter  Shandy ; '  cer- 
tainly as  distinct  a  personality  as  exists  in  English  fiction. 
It  was  no  less  an  exact  copy  of  the  original — Friedrich 
Wilhelm  his  real  self —discerned  and  reproduced  by  the 
insight  of  a  nature  whicli  had  much  in  common  with  him. 
Those  bursts  of  passion,  with  wild  words  flying  about, 
and  sometimes  worse  than  words,  and  the  agonised  revul- 
sion, with  the  *0h,  my  Feekin  !  oh,  my  Feekin  !  whom 
have  I  in  the  world  but  thee  ? '  must  have  sadly  reminded 
Mrs.  Carlyle  of  occasional  episodes  in  Cheyne  Eow. 


CHAPTER  XXIY. 

A.D.  1858-    .    MT.    -63. 

Night  in  a  Railway  Ti*aiii — Anuandale — Meditations — A  new  Ward- 
robe—Visit to  Craigenputtock — Second  time  in  Grermany — 
The  Isle  of  Rugin — Putbus — Berlin — Selesia  Prag — Weimar 
— Aix — Frederich  Catterfield's  and  Carlyle's  descriptions  by 
turns — Returns  to  England — Second  Marriage  of  Lord  Ash- 
burton. 

No  further  progress  could  be  made  with  *  Frederick '  till 
there  had  been  a  second  tour  in  Germany,  which  was  to  be 
effected,  if  possible,  in  tlie  summer  or  autumn  of  this  year, 
1858.  Tlie  immediate  necessity,  after  tlie  completion  of 
the  present  volumes,  was  for  rest.  When  the  strain  was 
taken  off,  Carlyle  fell  into  a  collapsed  condition.  Not- 
withstanding his  good  resolutions,  he  became  slightly 
fretful  and  troublesome,  having  nothing  immediate  to  do. 
He  was  slightly  out  of  health,  and  fancied  himself  worse 
than  he  was.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  grown  better  with  the 
warmer  weather ;  he  could  venture  to  leave  her,  and  he 
went  off  in  the  middle  of  June  to  his  sister  in  Annandale. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Ckirlyle. 

The  Gill,  Annan,  June  24,  1858. 
Well,  my  dear  little  Jeannie,  here  I  am  safe,  with  less  suffering 
than  I  anticipated.  Nothing  went  awry  of  all  the  arrangements  ; 
not  the  smallest  ill  accident  befell.  My  cliief  suflfering  was  from 
dust.  Foul  air  I  overcame  by  addressing,  at  the  very  first  pulling 
up  of  the  opposite  window,  a  forcible  bit  of  familiar  eloquence  to 
the  gentleman  active ;  '  how  would  he  like  to  have  his  neighbour's 
dirty  shirt  offered  him  to  wear,  which  was  a  clean  transaction  in  com* 


176  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

parison? '  so  that  they  at  least  let  me  keep  down  my  own  window, 
and  even  kept  down  theirs,  poor  souls  !  in  whole  or  in  part,  almost 
the  whole  night.  We  were  five — mostly  fat ;  but  these  arrange- 
ments secured  air,  though  with  a  painful  admixture  of  dust  and 
engine  smoke.  Except  myself,  the  poor  souls  (Glasgow  bodies 
mostly)  fell  sound  asleep  in  an  hour  or  two,  and  word  of  speech  to 
me  there  was  none,  though  perfect  good  nature,  mixed  with  ap- 
prehension, as  I  judged.  About  midnight  I  changed  my  waistcoat, 
and  took  out  the  supper  provided  me  by  my  own  poor  considerate 
little  Goody.  It  was  an  excellent  device.  Some  winks  of  sleep  I 
had,  too,  though  the  stoppage  always  woke  me  again.  In  fine, 
Carlisle,  through  a  beautiful,  bright,  breezy  morning,  a  little  be- 
fore six.  Cigar  there  ;  hardly  finished  when  we  started  again ; 
and  at  seven  the  face  of  Austin,  with  a  gig,  met  me  at  Cummer- 
trees,  and  within  half  an  hour  more  I  was  busy  washing  here,  and 
about  to  fall  upon  breakfast  in  my  old  quarters,  ...  I  have 
had  coffee  of  prime  quality,  been  out  strolling  to  smoke  a  pipe, 
and  returned  with  my  feet  wet.  This  is  all  I  have  yet  done^  and  I 
propose  next  to  put  on  my  dressing-gown,  and  fairly  lie  down  in 
quest  of  a  sleep.  This  will  probably  be  gone  before  I  awake  again  ; 
but,  indeed,  what  news  can  there  Avell  be  in  the  interim  from  a 
man  in  his  sleep.  Oh,  my  dear,  one  Friendkin'!  (what  other  have 
I  left  really  ?)  I  was  truly  wae  to  leave  thee  yesternight ;  you  did 
not  go  away  either.  I  saw  you,  and  held  up  my  finger  to  you 
almost  at  the  very  last.  Don't  bother  yourself  in  writing  me  a 
very  long  letter  ;  a  very  short  one,  if  it  only  tell  me  you  begin  to 
j)rofit  by  being  left  alone,  will  be  abundantly  welcome.  Adieu, 
dearest.     I  even  think  of  Nero,  the  wretch  ! 

Ever  yours, 

T.  Caklyle. 

The  next  morning  lie  gathered  and  sent  her  a  sprig  of 
heather. 

I  am  perfectly  alone,  he  said,  nothing  round  me  but  the  grey 
winds  and  the  abyss  of  Time,  Past,  Present,  and  Future.  A  whole 
Sanhedrim,  or  loudly  debating  parliament,  so  to  speak,  of  reminis- 
cences and  ghosts  is  assembled  round  me — sad,  very  sad  of  tone  in 
the  mind's  ear,  but  not  unprofitable  either.  A  Little  live  note  to 
Goody  will  be  a  comfort  to  myself,  and  no  displeasure  to  Nero  and 
her  over  the  tea  to-morrow  morn.' 


In  Dumfriesshire,  177 

He  bethought  himself  that  before  he  left  London  he 
had  been  more  cross  than  he  ought  to  have  been,  indeed 
both  cross  and  pervei-se.  It  was  *  the  nature  of  the  beast,' 
as  he  often  said,  and  had  to  be  put  up  with,  like  the  wind 
and  the  rain.  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  imagine^  that  she  must 
have  been  in  some  fault  herself,  or  that  he  thought  so. 

The  one  thing  that  I  objected  to  in  your  note,  he  answered,  was 
that  of  my  being  discontented,  with  yon,  or  having  ever  for  an  in- 
stant been.  Depend  upon  it  that  is  a  mistake,  once  for  all.  I  was 
indeed  discontented  with  myself,  with  hot,  fetid  London,  -^^Aca^ 
with  all  persons  and  things — and  my  stomach  had  struck  work 
withal ;  but  not  discontented  with  poor  you  ever  at  alL  Nay,  to 
tell  you  the  truth,  your  anger  at  me  (grounded  on  that  false  basis) 
was  itself  sometimes  a  kind  of  comfort  to  me.  I  thought,  *  Well, 
she  has  strength  enough  to  be  cross  and  ill-natured  at  me ;  she  is 
not  all  softness  and  affection  and  weakness.' 

At  the  Gill  he  could  indulge  his  moods,  bright  or  som- 
bre, as  he  liked. 

Here,  he  said,  all  goes  without  jolt ;  well  enough  we  may  define 
everything  to  be.  I  find  the  air  decidedly  wholesome  to  me. 
I  do  my  sleeping,  my  eating,  my  walking,  am  out  all  day,  in  the 
oj>en  air  ;  regard  myself  as  put  in  hospital,  decidedly  on  favourable 
terms,  and  am  certain  to  improve  daily.  One  of  my  worst  wants 
is  clothes  ;  my  thin  London  dress  does  not  suit  this  temperature, 
and  positively  I  am  too  shabby  for  showing  face  on  the  roads  at 
all. 

Gloom,  as  usual,  clung  to  him  like  a  shadow. 

I  go  on  well,  he  continued ;  am  very  sad  and  solitary,  ill  in 
want  of  a  horse.  The  evening  walks  in  the  grey  howl  of  the 
winds,  by  the  loneliest  places  I  can  find,  are  like  walks  in  Hades. 
Yet  there  is  something  wholesome  in  them  ;  something  stem  and 
grand,  as  if  one  had  the  Eternities  for  company,  in  defect  of  suit* 
abler. 

The  Eternities,  however  fond  he  was  of  their  company, 

left  him  time  to  think  of  other  things.     His  wife's  cousin, 

John  Welsh,  was  ill.     He  at  once  insisted  that  the  boy 

should  go  to  Madeira,  and  should  go  at  his  own  and  his 

Vol.  IV.  ^12 


178  CarlyWs  Life  m  London. 

wife's  expense.  If  thoughtful  charity  recommends  men 
to  tlie  Higher  Powers,  none  ever  better  deserved  of  them 
than  Carljle.  But  he  thought  nothing  of  such  things. 
He  was  soon  finding  himself  happy,  in  clear  air  and  si- 
lence, with  his  ^ister,  '  feeling  only  a  wearied  man,  not  a 
ghastly  phantasm,  haunted  by  demons,  as  he  usually  was 
in  London.'     His  costume  was  his  chief  anxiety. 

Oh  you  lucky  Goody,  to  be  out  of  all  that,  he  said.  Never  did 
I  see  so  despicably  troublesome  a  problem — insoluble,  too  ;  the 
enci:?!*  varieties  being  all  of  quack  nature,. and  simply  no  good 
stuff  for  raiment  to  be  had.  I  have  come  to  discover  that  here, 
too,  I  must  pay  my  tribute  to  the  general  insanity,  take  such 
clothes  as  are  to  be  had,  and  deliver  poor  Jean  and  myself  from 
further  bother  on  the  subject.  Oh,  my  Goody  !  I  am  very  wae  and 
lonely  here.  Take  care,  tal^e  care  of  thy  i30or  little  self,  for  truly 
enough  I  have  no  other. 

The  next  letters  are  very  touching,  almost  tragic. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

The  Gill :  July  5,  1&58. 
I  reckon  myself  improving  in  bodily  health.  As  for  the  spirit- 
ual part,  there  is  no  improving  of  me.  I  live  in  a  death's  head,  as 
Jean  Paul  says  some  woodpeckers  do,  finding  it  handier  than 
otherwise,  and  there  I  think  I  shall  mostly  continue.  I  sleep  tol- 
erably well  always.  They  are  all  as  kind  and  attentive  here  as 
they  can  be.  Fr actus  hello,  fessus  annis.  I  ought  to  think  myself 
lucky  in  such  a  niche,  and  try  to  gather  my  wayward  wanderings 
of  thought,  and  compose  myself  a  little,  which  I  have  not  yet  in 
the  least  done  since  I  caftie  hither.  My  best  time  is  usually  the 
evening ;  never  saw  such  evenings  for  freshness,  brightness — the 
west  one  champaign  of  polished  silver,  or  silver  gilt,  as  the  sun 
goes  down,  and  I  get  upon  the  wastes  of  the  Priest-side,  with  no 
sound  audible  but  that  of  tired  geese  extensively  getting  home  to 
their  quarters,  and  here  and  there  a  contemplative  cuddy,  giving 
utterance  to  the  obscure  feeling  he  has  about  this  universe.  I  go 
five  or  six  miles,  striding  along  under  the  western  twilight,  and 
return  home  only  because  porridge  ought  not  to  be  belated  over 
much.  I  read  considerably  here,  sit  all  day  sometimes  under  the 
shelter  of  a  comfortable  hedge,  pipe  not  far  distant,  and  read  Ar- 


In  Dumf7de88hire,  179 

rian.  Oh,  if  I  sent  you  all  the  thoughts — sad  extremely  some  of 
them — which  I  have  about  you,  they  would  fill  much  paper,  and 
perhaps  you  would  not  believe  in  some  of  them.  It  grieves  my 
heart  to  think  of  yoii  weltering  along  in  that  unblessed  London 
element,  wliile  there  is  a  bright,  wholesome  summer  rolling  by. 

July  8. 
I  am  a  prey  to  doleful  considerations,  and  my  solitary  imagina- 
tion has  free  field  with  me  in  the  summer  silence  here.  My  i)oor 
little  Jeannie  I  my  poor,  ever-true  life-partner,  hold  up  thy  little 
heart.  We  have  had  a  sore  life  pilgrimage  together,  much  bad 
road,  poor  lodging,  and  bad  weather,  little  like  what  I  could  have 
wished  or  dreamt  for  my  little  woman.  But  we  stood  to  it,  too ; 
and,  if  it  please  God,  there  are  yet  good  years  ahead  of  us,  better 
and  quieter  much  than  the  past  have  been  now  and  then.  There 
is  no  use  in  going  on  with  such  reflections  and  anticipations.  No 
amount  of  pai)er  would  hold  them  all  at  this  time,  nor  could  any 
words,  spoken  or  written,  give  credible  account  of  them  to  thee. 
I  am  woe  exceedingly,  but  not  half  so  miserable  as  I  have  often 
been. 

July  9. 

I  lay  awake  all  last  night,  and  never  had  I  such  a  series  of  hours 
filled  altogether  with  you.  ...  I  was  asleep  for  some  mo- 
ments, but  woke  again  ;  was  out,  was  in  the  bathing-tub.  It  was 
not  till  about  five  that  I  got  into  *  comatose  oblivion,'  rather  than 
sleep,  which  ended  again  towards  eight.  My  poor  suffering 
Jeannie  was  \he  theme  of  my  thoughts.  Nay,  if  I  had  not  had 
that  I  should  have  found  something  else  ;  but,  in  very  truth,  my 
soul  was  black  with  misery  about  you.  Past,  present,  future, 
yielded  no  light  point  anywhere.  Alas  !  and  I  had  to  say  to  my- 
self, This  is  something  like  what  she  has  suffered  700  times  within 
the  last  two  years.  My  poor,  heavy-laden,  brave,  uncomplaining 
Jeannie !  Oh,  forgive  me,  forgive  me  for  the  much  I  have  thought- 
lessly done  and  omitted,  far,  far,  at  all  times,  from  the  poor  purpose 
of  my  mind.  And  God  help  us  !  thee,  poor  suffering  soul,  and 
also  me.  God  be  with  thee  !  wha,t  beneficent  power  we  can  call 
God  in  this  world  who  is  exorable  to  human  prayer. 

One  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  letters  had  been  delayed  in  the 
post.     It  arrived  a  day  late.     lie  writes  : — 

July  11. 
If  nothing  had  come  that  day  too,  I  think  I  must  have  got  into 
the  rail  myself  to  come  up  and  see.     It  was  a  great  relief  from  the 


180  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

blackest  side  of  my  imaginings,  but  also  a  sad  fall  from  the 
brighter  side  I  had  been  endeavouring  to  cherish  for  the  day  pre- 
ceding. Oh  me,  oh  me  !  I  know  not  what  has  taken  me  ;  but 
ever  since  that  sleepless  night,  though  I  am  sleeping,  &c.,  tolerably 
well  again,  there  is  nothing  but  wail  and  lamentation  in  the  heart 
of  all  my  thoughts — a  voice  as  of  Eachel  weeping  for  her  children  ; 
and  I  cannot  divest  myself  of  the  most  pusillanimous  strain  of  hu- 
mour.    All  yesterday  I  remarked,  in  speaking  to ,  if  any  tragic 

topic  came  in  sight,  I  had  a  difficulty  to  keep  from  breaking  down 
in  my  speech,  and  becoming  inarticulate  with  emotion  over  it.  It 
is  as  if  the  scales  were  falling  from  my  eyes,  and  I  were  beginning 
to  see  in  this,  my  solitude,  things  that  touch  me  to  the  very  quick. 
Oh,  my  little  woman  !  what  a  sujQfering  thou  hast  had,  and  how 
nobly  borne  !  with  a  simplicity,  a  silence,  courage,  and  patient  hero- 
ism which  are  only  now  too  evident  to  me.  Three  waer  days  I  can 
hardly  remember  in  my  life ;  but  they  were  not  without  worth 
either ;  very  blessed  some  of  the  feelings,  though  many  so  sore 
and  miserable.  It  is  very  good  to  be  left  alone  with  the  truth 
sometimes,  to  hear  with  all  its  sternness  what  it  will  say  to  one. 

All  this  was  extremely  morbid ;  but  it  was  not  an  un- 
natural consequence  of  habitual  want  of  self-restraint, 
coupled  with  tenderness  of  conscience  when  conscience  w^as 
awake  and  could  speak.  It  was  likely  enough  that  in 
those  night-watches,  %Dhe7i  the  scales  fell  off,  accusing  re- 
membrances must  have  risen  before  him  which  were  not 
agreeable  to  look  into.  With  all  his  splendid  gifts,  moral 
and  intellectual  alike,  Carlyle  was  like  a  wayward  child — 
a  child  in  wilfulness,  a  child  in  the  intensity  of  remorse. 
His  brother  James  provided  him  with  a  horse — a  ^  drome- 
dary,' he  called  it,  *  loyal  but  extremely  stupid ' — to  ride 
or  drive  about  among  the  scenes  of  his  early  years.  One 
day  he  went  past  HoddaniHill,  Repentance  Tower,  Eccle- 
fechan  churchyard,  &c.,  beautiful,  quiet,  all  of  it,  in  the 
soft  summer  air,  and  yet  he  said,  '  The  valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat  could  not  have  been  more  stern  and  terribly  impressive 
to  him.  He  could  never  forget  that  afternoon  and  evening, 
the  old  churchyard  tree  at  Eeclefechan,  the  white  head- 


MisoeUaneom  Sorrotos,  181 

stones  of  which  ho  caught  a  steady  look.  The  deepest  de 
rrofandu  was  poor  to  the  feeling  in  his  heart'  Tlie 
thought  of  his  wife,  ill  and  solitary  in  London,  tortured 
him.  Would  she  come  to  the  Gill  to  be  nursed  ?  ^o  one 
in  the  world  loved  her  more  dearly  than  his  sister  Mary. 
The  daughters  would  wait  on  her,  and  be  her  servants. 
He  would  himself  go  away,  that  he  might  be  no  trouble  to 
her.  Amidst  his  sorrows  the  ridiculous  lay  close  at  hand. 
If  he  was  to  go  to  Germany,  his  clothes  had  to  be  seen  to. 
An  entire  '  new  wardrobe '  was  provided,  *  dressing-gown, 
coats,  trousers  lying  round  him  like  a  hay  coil ; '  rather 
well-made  too,  after  all,  though  *  the  whole  operation  had 
been  scandalous  and  disgusting,  owing  to  the  anarchy  of 
things  and  shopkeepers  in  those  parts.'  Ho  had  been  re- 
commended to  wear  a  leather  belt  for  the  future  when  he 
rode.  His  sisters  did  their  best,  but  *  the  problem  became 
abstruse ; '  a  saddler  had  to  be  called  in  from  Dumfries, 
and  there  was  adjusting  and  readjusting.  Carlyle,  sad  and 
mournful,  *  inexpressibly  wearied,'  impatient,  irritated, 
declared  himself  disgusted  with  the  *  problem,'  and  more 
disgusted  with  himself,  '  when  he  witnessed  his  sister's  in- 
dustrious helpfulness,  and  his  own  unhelpable  nature.' 

Pardon  me,  he  cried— pardon  me,  ye  good  souls !  Oh,  it  is  not 
that  I  am  cruel  or  unthankful ;  but  I  am  weary,  weary,  and  it  is 
diflScult  to  get  the  galling  harness  from  me,  and  the  heavy  burden 
off  the  back  of  an  old  wayworn  animal,  at  this  advanced  stage. 
You  never  saw  such  sewing  of  hcUsy  thrice  over  each  of  the  two 
that  were  realized  (and,  in  fact,  they  do  seem  to  fit  perfectly) ;  not 
to  si^eak  of  my  unjust  impatience — most  unjust— of  my  sulky  de- 
spair. Poor,  good  sister !  No  wonder  I  was  wae  in  walking  into  the 
cold,  bright  sunset  after  seeing  her  off.  The  silence  before  I  re- 
turned in  again — the  wind  having  gone  down — was  intense  ;  only 
one  poor  collie  heard  expressing  his  astonishment  at  it  miles  away. 

The  clothes  and  belt  question  being  disposed  of,  he  grew 
better — slept  better.  The  d^nom  came  less  often.  A 
German  Life  of  Charles  XH.  was  a  useful  distraction. 


182  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

Such  a  man  !  would  not  for  the  whole  world  have  spoken  or 
done  any  lie  ;  valiant  as  a  son  of  Adam  ever  was — strange  to  see 
upon  a  throne  in  this  earth ;  the  grand  life  blown  out  of  him  at 
last  by  a  canaille  of  ^  Nobility,^  so  called. 

A  visit  to  Craigenputtock  had  become  necessary.  There 
was  business  to  be  attended  to,  the  tenant  to  be  seen  and 
spoken  with,  &c.  He  rather  dreaded  this  adventure,  but 
it  was  not  to  be  avoided.     His  brother  James  went  with 

him. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

The  Gill,  August  6,  1858. 
Yesterday  the  Craigenputtock  expedition  was  achieved.  Batter- 
ing showers  attended  us  from  Iron  Grey  kirkyard  to  Sunday  well, 
but  no  other  misadventure  at  all ;  for  as  to  famine,  neither  Jamie 
nor  I  could  have  eaten  had  the  chance  been  offered  us,  as,  indeed, 
it  was  by  our  loyal  tenant  and*liis  wife.  On  the  whole,  the  busi- 
ness was  not  at  all  so  uncomfortable  as  I  had  anticipated,  or,  in- 
deed, to  be  called  miserable,  at  all,  except  for  the  memories  it 
could  not  fail  to  awaken.  From  Stroquhan  upwards  there  are 
slight  improvements  noticeable  in  one  or  two  places,  but  essen- 
tially no  marked  change.  The  bleak  moor  road  lay  in  plashes  of 
recent  rain  from  Carstammon  onwards.  Stumpy  [some  field]  was 
in  crop — very  poor  promise  the  oatmeal  coming  there  ;  and  after 
two  other  gates  by  the  side  of  the  ragged  woods  gi'own  sensibly 
bigger,  and  through  our  once  '  pleasaunce, '  which  is  grown  a 
thicket  of  straggling  trees,  we  got  to  the  front  door,  where  the  poor 
old  knocker,  tolerably  scoured  still,  gave  me  a  pungent  salutation. 
The  house,  trim  and  tight  in  all  essential  particulars,  is  now  quite 
buried  in  woods ;  and  even  from  the  upper  back  windows  you  can 
see  no  moor,  only  distant  mountain-tops,  and,  near  by,  leafy  heads 
of  trees.  The  tenant,  who  was  in  waiting  by  aj)pointment,  is  a  fine, 
tall,  strapping  fellow,  six  feet  two  or  so,  with  cheerful  sense,  hon- 
esty, i)rompt  mastery  of  his  business  looking  out  of  every  feature  of 
him  ;  wife,  too,  a  good  busy  young  mother.  Our  old  dining-room  is 
now  the  state  apartment,  bearing  her  likeness,  as  it  once  did  quite 
another  dame's,  and  grand  truly  for  those  parts  :  new-papered,  in  a 
flaming. pattern,  carpetted  do.,  with  tiny  sideboard,  &c.  I  re- 
cognised only  the  old  grate  and  quasi-marble  mantelpiece,  little 
changed,  and  surely  an  achievement  dear  to  me  now.  Your  old 
paper  is  on  the  other  two  rooms,  dim,  like  the  fading  memories.    I 


Visit  to  Craigenjmttock,  183 

looked  with  emotion  upon  my  old  library  closeC,  and  wished  I  could 
get  thither  again,  to  tinish  my  •  Frederick '  under  fair  chances.  Ex- 
cept some  small  injuries  about  the  window-sashes,  &c.,  which  are 
now  on  the  road  to  repair,  everything  was  tight  and  right  there.  A 
considerable  young  elm  (natural  son  of  the  old  high  tree  at  theN.E. 
comer  of  the  house,  under  which  I  have  read  Waverley  Novels  in 
summer  holidays)  has  planted  itself  near  the  bare  wall — our  screen 
from  the  old  peat-house,  you  recollect — and  has  got  to  be  ten  or 
twelve  feet  high  under  liouiishing  auspices.  This  I  ordered  to 
be  respected  and  cherished  towards  a  long  future,  &c. 

Craigenputtock  looks  all  very  respectably ;  much  wood  to  cut 
and  clear  away,  the  tenant  evidently  doing  rather  well  in  it.  The 
poor  woods  have  struggled  up  in  spite  of  weather,  tempest,  and 
misfortune.  Even  Macadam's  burnt  plantation  begins  to  come 
away,  and  the  old  trees  left  of  it  are  tall  and  venerable  beings. 
Nothing  like  Craigenputtock  larch  for  toughness  in  all  this  coun- 
tiy.*  For  most  part,  there  are  again  far  too  many  trees.  '  300/. 
worth  o'  wud  to  cut  away,  and  mair,  and  there  is  a  market,*  said  a 
man  skilled  in  such  matters,  whom  I  found  mowing  there  and  con- 
sulted. ...  Is  not  this  enough  of  Craigenputtock — Crag  of 
the  Gleds,  as  its  name  means  ?    Enough,  and  to  spare. 

Germany  was  to  come  next,  and  to  come  immediately, 
before  tlie  days  drew  in.  He  shuddered  at  the  recollec- 
tion of  tlie  Zwei  7'u/iige  Zim77ier,  <fec.,  in  which  he  had 
suffered  so  much  torture.  But  lie  felt  that  he  must  go, 
cost  what  it  might.  Some  friend  had  proposed  to  take 
liim  in  a  yacht  to  tlie  Mediterranean  and  land  liiin  at 
Trieste.  Lord  Ashburton  more  reasonably  had  offeied 
him  a  cast  in  another  yacht  to  the  Baltic.  But  Carlyl^ 
chose  to  stand  by  the  ordinary  modes  of  conveyance.  JIc 
sent  for  his  passport,  nailed  a  map  of  Germany  to  his  wall, 
daily  perused  it,  and  sketched  an  outline  of  his  route.  M. 
Neuberg,  who  was  at  Ixiipzig,  was  written  to,  but  it  was 
doubtful  whether  he  was  attainable.  A  Mr.  Fo.xton,  a 
slight  acquaintance,  offered  his  companionship,  and  was 
conditionally  accepted  ;  and  after  one  or  two  *  preliminary 
shivers'  and  'shuddering  recoils,'  ('arlyle  screwed  his 
courage  to  the  sticking-point  and,  iu  spite  of  nerves  and 


184  Car'lyle's  Life  in  London, 

the  rest  of  it,  got  through  with  the  operation.  The  plan 
was  to  go  by  steam  to  Hamburg ;  whither  next  was  not 
quite  decided  when  an  invitation  came  from  Baron  von 
Usedom  and  his  English  wife  to  visit  them  in  the  Isle  of 
Riigen.  It  was  out  of  the  way ;  but  Stralsund,  Riigen, 
the  Baltic,  were  themselves  interesting.  The  Usedoms' 
letter  was  most  warm,  and  Carlyle,  who  rather  doubted 
Mr.  Foxton's  capabilities  as  courier,  thought  that  this  ex- 
cursion might  '  put  him  on  his  trial.'  He  could  be  dis- 
missed afterwards  if  found  unsuitable.  Much  anxiety  was 
given  to  poor  Mr.  Foxton.  Neuberg  held  out  hopes  of 
joining,  .and  Foxton  in  that  case  would  not  be  wanted. 
But  John  Carlyle  suggested  that  IS^euberg  and  he  would 
perhaps  neutralize  each  other,  like  alkali  and  acid.  On 
August  21  Carlyle  went  off  to  Edinburgh,  whither  poor 
Mr.  Foxton  had  come,  at  great  inconvenience  to  himself. 
He  found  his  friend  '  very  talky,  scratch  o'  plastery,  but 
serviceable,  assiduous,  and  good  compared  with  nothing.' 
The  evening  of  the  same  day  they  sailed  from  Leith. 

To  Jane   Welsh  Carlyle. 

Hamburg  :  August  24,  11  p.m. 
Here  I  am  safe  enough  since  eight  hours,  after  such  a  voyage  for 
tumult  and  discomfort  (now  forgotten)  as  I  have  seldom  made. 
The  Leith  people,  innocent  but  ineffectual  souls,  forgot  every 
promise  they  had  made  except  that  of  sailing  five  hours  after  their 
time  and  landing  us  at  last  fifteen  hours  after  ditto.  We  had  bad- 
dish  weather  all  Sunday,  mediocre  till  this  morning,  and  such  a 
scrambling  dog-kennel  of  a  sickly  life.  However,  the  sail  up 
the  Elbe  all  this  day  was  bright,  sunny,  and  beautiful,  and  our  his- 
tory since — a  fair  prospect  even  of  sleep  being  superadded — has 
been  favourable  in  all  points ;  so  that  thanks  to  Heaven  are  alone 
due  from  me  in  that  matter.  And  thy  little  heart,  poor  woman, 
wherever  this  may  find  thee,  may  set  itself  at  rest  on  my  score. 
We  have  the  finest  airy  hotel,  cheap  too,  they  say.  My  room  is  five 
stairs  up,  looking  over  mere  roofs.  We  dined  wholesomely. 
Neuberg  had  a  man  in  wait — poor  good  soul  after  all ! — to  say  that 
he  was  ready  at  any  hour,  <fec.     In  short,  except  a  storm  of  fine 


Second  lour  in    Gtniuuuj.  185 

■wind  music  spreading  over  the  city  and  not  yet  concluded,  there  is 
a  right  fair  share  of  comfort  and  good  omens  round  me  here  on 
fair  eartli  again.  The  music  is  excellently  sweet ;  pathetic  withal 
to  the  worn  soul  towards  midnight ;  and  I  write  to  my  own  little 
partner  far  away  for  to-morrow's  post,  till  it  cease.  Again  let  us 
thank  Heaven.  Foxton,  poor  fellow,  is  very  good ;  stands  snub- 
bing into  silence  ;  annihilates  himself  whenever  I  like,  and  is  verily 
a  gentleman  in  air  and  heart.  Good  for  almost  nothing  in  the  way 
of  helpy^  though  ]>rompt  as  possible.  But  along  withNeuberg  he 
will  do  extremely  well. 

AngaHt  2.5,  9  a.m. 

We  go  off  at  noon  towards  Usedom  and  Riigen,  Foxton  stopping 
at  Stralsund  near  by.  There  will  we  wait  Neuberg's  advance  in 
safety,  and  can  take  a  fine  sea-bathe  if  we  like,  for  B(\gen  is  the 
German  Isle  of  Wight. 

Carzitz,  Insel  ROgen  :  August  27. 

How  glad  I  am  to  write  to  thee  from  here.  Since  yesterday 
my  prospects  and  situation  have  miraculously  mended,  and  at  pres- 
ent I  call  myself  a  lucky  kind  of  man.  I  am  rid  of  Foxton  quite 
ad  libitum,  free  of  scratching  on  the  plaster.  Have  had  again  a 
sound  good  sleep,  and  am  lodged  in  the  prettiest  strange  place 
you  ever  saw,  among  people  kind  to  me  as  possible.  Am  going  to 
get  my  enterprise  deliberately  made  feasible,  and  as  a  preliminaiy 
mean  to  have  a  bathe  in  the  Baltic  Sea  as  soon  as  this  note  and  one 
to  Neuberg  is  done. 

Yesterday,  about  11  a.m.,  after  two  rather  sleepless  and  miser- 
able nights  on  land,  which  with  the  three  preceding  at  sea  had  re- 
duced me  to  a  bad  pitch,  I  had,  with  j>oor,  helpless  but  assiduous 
Foxton  stepped  out  of  the  railway  train  at  Rostock,  biggish  sea 
capital  of  Mecklenburg,  and  was  hurrying  along  to  get  a  place  in 
the  Stralsund  diligence,  with  no  prospect  but  eight  hours  of  suf- 
focation and  a  iright  to  follow  without  sleep,  when  a  lady,  attended 
by  her  maid,  addressed  me  with  sunny  voice  and  look,  '  Was  not  I 
Mr.  Carlyle?'  '  I  am  the  Frau  von  IJsedom,*  rejoined  she  on  my 
answer,  '  here  to  seek  you,  sixty-four  miles  from  home,  and  you 
must  go  with  me  henceforth.'  Hardly  in  my  life  had  such  a  nianus 
e  nnhihusi  been  extended  to  me.  I  need  not  say  how  thrice  gladly 
I  accepted.  I  had,  in  fact,  done  with  all  my  labour  then,  and  was 
earned  on  henceforth  like  a  mere  child  in  arms,  nothing  to  do  or 

>  I  may  as  well  aay  that  both  Mr.  Foxton  and  Mr.  Neuberg  have  been  dead 
for  several  years. 


186  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

care  for,  but  all  conceivable  accommodation  gracefully  provided 
me  up  hither  to  this  pleasant  Isle  of  the  Sea,  where  I  now  am  a 
considerably  rested  man.  We  posted  forty-five  miles,  I  sitting 
mainly  on  the  box,  smoking  and  gazing  abroad.  Foxton,  whom 
after  a  while  I  put  inside  to  do  the  talking,  we  dropped  at  Stral- 
sund,  6  p.m.,  other  side  of  the  little  strip  of  sea,  and  he  is  oflf  to 
Berlin  or  whither  he  likes,  and  I  need  not  recall  him  again  except 
as  sour  to  the  fat  of  Neuberg,  who  is  worth  a  million  of  him  for 
helping  me  on  and  making  no  noise  about  it.  Happy  journey  to 
poor  Foxton ! 

After  Stralsund  and  one  little  bit  of  sea  steaming  in  one  of  the 
brightest  autumn  evenings,  we  had  still  almost  twenty  miles  into 
the  strange  interior  of  the  Eiigen,  a  flat,  bare,  but  cultivated  place, 
with  endless  paths  but  no  roads.  Strange  brick-red  beehives  of 
cottages,  very  exotic-looking  ;  a  very  exotic  scene  altogether  in 
the  moonlight,  and  a  voluble,  incessantly  explosive,  demonstra- 
tive, but  thoroughly  good  Madame  von  Usedom  beside  me.  Most 
strange,  almost  as  in  a  Mahrchen.  But  we  had  four  swift  horses, 
a  new,  light  carriage,  and  went  spanking  along  roadless,  and  in 
fine  I  am  here  and  have  slept.  The  place  is  like  nothing  you  ever 
saw,  mediaeval,  semi-patriarchal,  half  a  farm-house,  half  a  palace. 
The  Herr,  who  is  at  Berlin,  returns  this  night.  Has  made  ar- 
rangements, &c.  Oh,  what  arrangements  !  and  even  *  spoken  of  it 
to  the  Prince  of  Prussia.'  What  is  also  for  practice  definitely 
lucky,  Neuberg's  letter  finds  me  this  morning,  and  he  will  himself 
be  in  Berlin  to-morrow  night,  there  to  wait.  N.  thinks  in  about 
two  weeks  after  our  meeting  the  thing  might  be  got  completed. 
Would  it  were  so,  and  I  home  again  out  of  these  foreign  elements 
good  and  bad.  In  a  word,  be  at  ease  about  me,  and  thank  Heaven 
I  have  human  room  to  sleep  in  again,  am  seeing  strange  things 
not  quite  worthless  to  me,  and,  in  fact,  am  in  a  fair  way.  If  I 
knew  you  were  but  well  I  think  I  could  be  almost  happy  here  to- 
day in  the  silent  sunshine  on  these  remote  Scandinavian  shores. 
The  wind  is  singing  and  the  sun  sporting  in  the  lindens,  and  I 
hear  doves  cooing.  Windows  up !  Two  rooms  all  to  myself. 
Coo  !  coo ! 

Berlin:  September  5. 

Above  a  week  since  you  heard  of  me  !  and  I,  unhappy  that  I 
am,  have  not  heard  from  you  one  word.^     Oh  !  may  the  like  never 
happen  between  us  again.     May  this  be   the  last  journey  I  take 
»  Her  letters  had  gone  to  Dresden. 


Berlin,  187 

into  foreign  tumults  and  horrors,  far  away  from  all  tliat  I  love  and 
all  that  is  really  helpful  to  me.  But  to  my  narrative  : — The  Use- 
doms  in  Biigen  were  the  kindest  of  hosts  to  me,  and  the  place 
and  circle  had  its  interests  and  advantages ;  but  alas !  I  fell  un- 
well the  day  after  writing  to  you.  Bathed  in  the  Baltic  on  the 
back  of  all  my  Hamburg  and  other  adventures  ;  caught  cold  ;  Juul 
already  caught  it,  but  developed  it  by  the  vile  '  bathe.'  Felt  as  if 
I  were  getting  into  a  fever  outright,  and  had  to  take  decisive  meas- 
ures, though  in  a  foreign  house.  That  did  prove  effectual,  but  you 
can  fancy  what  two  or  three  days  I  had,  the  rather  as  they  made 
me  do  the  '  picturesque  '  all  the  time ;  and  there  was  no  end  to 
the  talk  I  had  to  cai-ry  on.  The  Herr  von  Usedom  is  a  fine,  sub- 
stantial, intelligent,  and  good  man.  We  really  had  a  great  deal 
of  nice  speech  together,  and  did  beautifully  together ;  only  that  I 
was  so  weak  and  sickly,  and  except  keeping  me  to  the  picturesque, 
he  would  not  take  almost  any  wise  charge  of  my  ulterior  affairs. 
At  length — Friday  afternoon  last— he  did  set  out  with  me  towards 
Berlin  and  pi-acticalities.  'To  stay  over  night  at  Putbus,  the 
Bichmond  of  Riigen,  and  then  catch  the  steamer  to  Stettin,  and 
thence  by  rail  to  Berlin  next  day.'  We  got  to  Putbus,  doing  pic- 
turesque by  the  way.  A  beautiful  Putbus  indeed !  where  I  had 
such  a  night  as  should  be  long  memorable  to  me  :  big  loud  hotel, 
sea-bathing,  lodgera  with  their  noises,  including  plenteous  coach- 
horses  under  my  window,  followed  by  noises  of  cats,  item  of  brood 
sows,  and  at  two  a.m.  by  the  simultaneous  explosion  of  two  Cochin 
China  cocks,  who  continued  to  play  thenceforth,  and  left  me  what 
sleep  you  can  fancy  in  such  quarters.  Never  till  the  end  of  things 
may  I  visit  Putbus  again.  However,  next  day's — yesterday's — steam 
voyage  and  rail  was  pleasantly  successful,  and  at  10.30  p.m.  I 
found  the  useful  Neuberg,  who  had  secured  me  my  old  a})artment 
in  the  British  Hotel,  and  here,  thank  God,  I  have  got  some  sleep 
again  and  have  washed  my  skin  clean,  and  mean  to  be  on  the  road 
towards  Liegnitz  and  Breslau  to-morrow.  .  .  .  Neuberg  looks 
veiy  ugly— is,  in  fact,  ill  in  health.  Foxton  is  here  too  ;  scratchy, 
though  in  a  repentant  condition.  Enough !  let  us  on,  and  let 
them  do  !  Berlin  is  loud  under  my  windows.  A  grey,  close,  hot- 
tish  Sunday  ;  but  I  will  take  care  not  to  concern  myself  with  it 
beyond  the  needful.  To-morrow  we  are  off :  Liegnitz,  Breslau, 
Prag,  then  Dresden  ;  after  which  only  two  battlefields  remain,  and 
London  is  within  a  week.  Neuberg  is  also  going  straight  to  Lon- 
don.   You  may  compute  that  all  the  traveUiag  (/e^i/s— washtube. 


188  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

railways,  money  settlements,  &c. — are  fairly  off  my  hands  from 
this  point.  I  have  strength  enough  in  me  too.  With  the  snatches 
of  sleep  fairly  expectable,  I  conclude  myself  roadworthy  for  four- 
teen days.  Then  adieu  !  Keil  Kissen,  sloppy,  greasy  victual,  all 
cold,  too,  including  especially  the  coffee  and  the  tea.  Adieu, 
Teutschland !  Adieu,  travelling  altogether,  and  I  will  never  leave 
my  Goody  any  more.  Oh  !  what  a  Schatz  even  I,  poor  I,  possess 
in  that  quarter,  the  poorest,  but  also  the  richest  in  some  respects, 
of  all  the  sons  of  men. 

I  saw  some  prettyish  antient  Eiigen  gentlemen,  item  ladies,  who 
regarded  with  curiosity  the  foreign  monster.  Small  thanks  to 
them.  N.B. — The  Baltic  Sea  is  not  rightly  salt  at  all — not  so  salt 
as  Solway  at  half-tide,  and  one  evening  we  rode  across  an  arm  of 
it.     Insignificant  sea ! 

Brieg,  Lower  Silesia  :  September  10,  1858. 

We  quitted  Berlin  under  fair  auspices  Monday  morning  last,  for- 
tified with  a  general  letter  from  the  Prince's  aide-de-camp  to  all 
Prussian  officers  whatsoever.  But  hitherto,  owing  to  an  immense 
review,  which  occupies  everybody,  it  has  done  us  less  good  than 
we  expected.  At  Ciistrin  a  benevolent  major  did  attend  us  to  the 
field  of  Zorndorf,  and  showed  us  everything.  But  in  other  places 
the  review  at  Liegnitz  has  been  fatal  to  help  from  such  quarters. 
We  have  done  pretty  well  without ;  have  seen  three  other  fields, 
and  had  adventures  of  a  confused,  not  wholly  unpleasant,  charac- 
ter. 

Our  second  place  was  Liegnitz  itself,  full  of  soldiers,  oak  gar- 
lands, coloured  lamplets,  and  expectation  of  the  Prince.  W^e  were 
on  the  battlefield,  and  could  use  our  natural  eyes,  but  for  the  rest 
had  no  other  guidance  worth  other  than  contempt.  Did  well 
enough  nevertheless,  and  got  fairly  out  of  Liegnitz  to  Breslau, 
which  has  been  our  head-quarters  ever  since.  A  dreadfully  noisy 
place  at  night,  out  of  which  were  excursions.  Yesterday  to  Leu- 
then,  the  grandest  of  all  the  battles ;  to-day  hither  about  fifty 
miles  away  to  Molwitz,  the  first  of  Fritz's  fights,  from  which  we 
have  just  now  returned.  Sleep  is  the  great  diflSculty  here,  but 
one  does  contrive  some  way.  Occasionally,  as  at  Ciistrin,  one  has 
a  night  *  which  is  rather  exquisite.'  But  I  lie  down  in  the  day- 
time— in  fine,  struggle  through  one  way  or  the  other.  I  do  not 
think  it  is  doing  me  much  hurt,  and  it  lasts  only  some  ten  days 
now.  As  to  profit — well,  there  is  a  kind  of  comfort  in  doing  what 
one  intended.     The  people  are  a  good,  honest,  modest  set  of  be- 


The  BaUleJields,  189 

ings  ;  poorer  classes,  especially  in  the  country,  much  happier  than 
Mith  U8.  Eveiy  kind  of  industry  is  on  the  improving  hand  ;  the 
land,  mainly  sandy,  is  far  better  tilled  than  I  expected.  And  oh  ! 
the  church  stoeplos  I  have  mounted  up  into,  and  the  baibarous 
jargoning  I  have  had  questioning  ignorant  mankind.  Leuthen 
yesterday  and  Molwitz  to-day,  with  their  respective  ste^jjles,  I 
shall  never  forget. 

Brei^iau  :  f>t'j)temr*er  IL 

This  is  a  queer  old  city  as  you  ever  heard  of.  High  as  Edin- 
burgh, or  more  so.  Streets  very  strait  and  winding  ;  roofs  thirty 
feet  or  so  in  height,  and  of  proportionate  steepness,  ending  in 
chimney-heads  like  the  half  of  a  butter  firkin  set  on  its  side.  The 
people  are  not  beautiful,  but  they  seem  innocent  and  obligiDfr, 
brown-skinned,  scrubby  bodies,  a  good  many  of  them  of  Polack  or 
Slavic  breed.  More  power  to  their  elbow  !  You  never  saw  such 
churches,  Rath-houses,  &c.,  old  as  the  hills,  and  of  huge  propor- 
tions. An  island  in  the  Oder  here  is  completely  covered  with 
cathedrals  and  appendages.  Brown  women  with  cock  noses, 
snubby  in  chai-acter,  have  all  got  stmw  hats,  umbrellas,  crinolines, 
&c.,  as  fashion  orders,  and  are  no  doubt  charming  to  the  brown 
man.  Neuberg  is  a  perfect  Issachar  for  taking  labour  on  him  ; 
needs  to  be  led  with  a  strongish  curb.  Scratchy  Foxton  and  he 
are  much  more  tolerable  together.  Grease  plus  vinegar,  that  is 
the  iTile. 

Prag  :  September  14,  1858. 

From  Breslau,  where  I  wrote  last,  our  atlventures  have  been 
miscellaneous,  our  course  painful  but  successful.  At  Landshut, 
edge  of  the  Riesen  Gebirge,  where  we  arrived  near  eleven  the  first 
night,  in  a  crazy  vehicle  of  one  horse,  you  never  saw  such  a  scene 
of  squalid  desolation.  I  had  pleased  myself  with  the  thoughts  of 
a  cup  of  hot  milk,  such  as  is  generally  procurable  in  German  inns. 
Umsonst !  no  milk  in  the  house !  no  nothing !  only  a  rnhiges 
Zimmer  not  opened  for  weeks  past,  by  the  smell  of  it.  I  mostly 
missed  sleep.  Our  drive  next  day  through  the  Riesen  Gebirge  into 
Bohemian  territory  was  as  beautiful  as  any  I  ever  had.  It  ended 
in  confusion,  getting  into  milways  full  of  dirty,  smoking,  Sunday 
gents,  fully  as  ugly  on  the  Elbe  there  as  on  the  Thames  nearer  you. 
We  had  passed  the  sources  of  the  Elbe  early  in  the  day ;  then 
crossed  it  at  night.  "We  have  not  far  quitted  it  since,  nor  shall 
till  we  pass  Dresden.  The  gents  that  night  led  us  to  a  place  called 
PardubiU,  terribly  familiai-  to  me  from  those  dull  *  Frederick  * 


190  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

books,  where  one  of  the  detestablest  nights  of  all  this  expedition 
was  provided  me.  Big,  noisy  inn,  full  of  evil  smells ;  contemptible 
little  wicked  village,  where  a  worse  than  jerry-shoi)  close  over  the 
way  raged  like  Bedlam  or  Erebus,  to  cheer  one,  in  a  bed,  i.e., 
trough,  eighteen  inches  too  short,  and  a  mattress  forced  into  it 
which  cocked  up  at  both  ends  as  if  you  had  been  in  the  trough  of 
a  saddle.  Ach  Himmel !  We  left  it  at  4  a.m.  to  do  the  hardest 
day's  work  of  any.  Chotusitz,  Kolin — such  a  day,  in  a  wicked 
vehicle  with  a  spavined  horse,  amid  clouds  of  dust,  under  a  blazing 
sun.  I  was  half-mad  on  getting  hither  at  8.30  p.m.,  again  by  the 
railway  carriage,  among  incidental  groups  of  the  nastiest  kind  of 
gents.  . 

The  Bohemians  are  a  different  people  from  the  Germans  proper. 
Yesterday  not  one, in  a  hundred  of  them  could  understand  a  word 
of  German.  They  are  liars,  thieves,  slatterns,  a  kind  of  miserable 
subter-Irish  people — Irish  with  the  addition  of  ill-nature  and  a 
disposition  decidedly  disobliging.  We  called  yesterday  at  an  inn 
on  the  battlefied  of  Kolin,  where  Frederick  had  gone  aloft  to  take 
a  survey  of  the  ground.  *  The  Golden  Sun  '  is  still  its  title  ;  but 
it  has  sunk  to  be  the  dirtiest  house  probably  in  Europe,  and  with 
the  nastiest-looking,  ill-thriving  spectre  of  a  landlady,  who  had 
not  even  a  glass  of  beer,  if  Foxton  could  have  summoned  courage 
to  drink  it  in  honour  of  the  occasion. 

This  is  a  grand  picturesque  town,  this  Prag.  To-day  we  had 
our  own  difficulties  in  getting  masters  of  the  Ziscaberg,  Sterbe- 
hohe,  and  other  localities  of  the  battle  which  young  ladies  play  on 
the  j)iano — but  on  the  whole  it  was  light  compared  with  the  throes 
of  yesterday.  Here  is  an  authentic  -wild  pink  plucked  from  the 
battlefield.  Give  it  to  some  young  lady  who  practises  the  '  Battle 
of  Prague  '  on  her  piano  to  your  satisfaction. 

There  are  now  but  three  battlefields  to  do,  one  double,  day  after 
to-morrow  by  a  return  ticket  to  be  had  in  Dresden,  the  two  next — 
Torgau,  Eossbach — in  two  days  following.  Poor  Neuberg  has 
fairly  broken  down  by  excess  of  yesterday's  labour,  and  various 
misery.  He  gave  up  the  Hradschin  [Radsheen  they  pronounce  it) 
to  Foxton  and  me,  though  one  of  the  chief  curiosities  of  Prag,  and 
has  gone  to  bed — a  noisy  bed — with  little  nursing,  poor  man ;  but 
hopes  to  be  roadworthy  to-morrow  again.  He  is  the  mainstay  of 
every  enteri^rise — I  could  not  do  without  him— and  Foxton  is  good 
for  absolutely  nothing,  except  to  neutralize  him,  which  he  pretty 
much  does. 


Second  Tour  in  Germany.  191 

Dresden:  September  15, 185& 
I  have  got  your  second  letter  here— a  delightful  little  letter, 
which  I  read  sitting  on  the  Elbe  bridge  in  the  sunshine  after  I 
had  got  my  face  washed,  with  such  a  struggle,  and  could  get  leave 
to  feel  like  Jonah  after  being  vomited  from  the  whale's  belly.  Our 
journey  from  l^g  lias  excelled,  in  confusion,  all  I  ever  witnessed 
in  the  world ;  the  beautifullest  country  ever  seen  too,  and  the 
beautifullest  weather — but,  Ach  Gott !  However,  we  are  now  near 
the  end  of  it.  .  .  .  I  am  not  hurt ;  I  really  do  not  think  my- 
self much  hui*t — but,  oh  what  a  need  of  sleep,  of  silence,  of  a  right 
good  washing  with  soap  and  water  all  over  I 

On  September  22  he  was  safe  at  home  again  at  Chelsea 
— having  fiiiislied  his  work  in  exactly  a  month.  Nero 
was  there  to  '  express  a  decent  joy'  at  seeing  him  again — 
Isero,  but  not  his  mistress.  She  was  away  in  Scotland 
with  lier  friends,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Russell.  He  had  charged 
her  not  to  return  on  his  account  as  long  as  she  was  getting 
good  from  the  change  of  air  and  scene.  On  the  twenty- 
third  he  sent  her  the  history  of  the  rest  of  his  adventures. 

Our  journey  after  Dresden  continued,  with  the  usual  velocity  and 
tribulation,  over  Hochkirch — beautiful  outlook  from  the  steeple 
there,  and  beautiful  epitaph  on  Marshal  Keith,  one  of  the  seven 
hundred  that  perished  on  that  spot,  the  church  doors  still  holed 
with  the  musketry  there — over  Leipzig,  where  Foxton  rejoined  us 
after  our  thrice-toilsome  day  at  Torgau ;  then  from  AVeiasenfeld 
over  Bossbach,  the  last  v»  our  series,  thank  Heaven  !     We  then  got 

into  the  Weimar  train,  found  little  M ,  and,  wliat  was  better,  u 

fine,  quiet  bed-room,  looking  out  upon  decent  garden-ground  in 
the  inn  already  known  to  me,  where  I  procured  a  human  sleep, 
and  also  a  tub  with  water  enough  next  morning — and,  in  short, 
was  greatly  refreshed ;  the  rather  as  I  absolutely  refused  to  go 
about  except  in  the  narrowest  limits  next  day,  and  preferred  lying 
on  my  bed,  asleep  or  not,  to  all  the  *  sights '  in  nature.  At  three 
p.m.  we  had  to  go  again.  The  Grand  Duchess  sent  a  telegram — 
being  telegraphed  to — most  gracious,  but  it  was  to  no  purpose.  I 
did  wish  to  see  the  high  lady— very  clever  and  distinguished, 
everybody  says — but  it  involved  waiting  twenty-four  hours  in  an 
uncertain  hostelry  at  Eisenach,  and  then  getting  off  at  two  a.m., 
therefore  resolutely,  *  No,  Illustrious  Madame.'     Next  day  from 


192  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

Guntersliausen,  near  Cassel,  to  Aix-la-Cliai3elle,  was  among  the 
hardest  in  my  experience  of  physical  misery— begins  at  four  a.m., 
no  sleep  behind  it,  nor  any  food  before  it,  and  lasts  incessantly 
till  seven  p.m.  ;  oftenest  in  slow  trains  through  broiling  sun,  sand 
clouds,  and  manufacturing  smoke.  My  living  was  a  cup  of  most 
lukewarm  coffee,  swallowed  like  physic,  which  it  much  resembled, 
as  all  German  coffee  does,  and  poor  eating  to  it ;  not  even  a  crumb 
of  bread  and  butter  ;  raw  ham  and  bread,  to  be  washed  down  too 
in  one  minute  of  time.  On  this,  with  a  glass  of  soda  water  and 
cognac  and  farthing  loaf  of  tough  bread  picked  up  somewhere, 
human  nature  had  to  subsist  to  Aix,  arrive  there  about  seven.  .  .  . 
About  half -past  eight  try  to  eat  if  you  could  something  tepid  and 
questionable.  Happily  the  bed  was  once  more  human— I  was 
thoroughly  done  up. 

Next  morning  stand  upon  the  lid  of  Charlemagne — abominable 
monks  roaring  out  their  idolatrous  grand  music  within  sight. 
Then  embark  again — arrived  at  Ostend  six  to  seven  p.m.,  get  on 
board  a  boat  to  Dover  (mail  steamer),  six  hours — nothing  to  be 
had  as  living,  Neuberg  and  others  very  sick.  In  Dover  one  a.m  , 
tumult  of  custom-houses,  of  over-crowded  inns  ;  in  despair  try  tea 
and  retire  to  one's  garret,  with  nothing  to  depend  on  but  lucifers 
and  tobacco  through  the  night.  It  was  not  so  bad  as  might  have 
been  expected.  Next  day  a  fine  train  up  to  town,  Foxton  branch- 
ing off  at  Redhill,  and  taking  leave  almost  with  tears.  By  the 
river  steamer  I  reach  home  half-past  four,  or  rather  later.  To- 
day, after  a  good  sleejD,  good  coffee,  &c.,  I  have  as  bad  a  headache 
as  need  be  desired,  and  trace  the  Strapazen  of  this  journey  in  a 
lively  manner.  I  feel  in  me,  down  in  the  breast  chiefly,  the  stock 
of  cold  I  have  had  secretly  these  three  weeks,  but  otherwise  ail 
nothing. 

Such  was  Carljle's  second  tonr  in  Germany,  as  sketched 
in  these  letters  by  himself.  One  misses  something  of  the 
liveliness  of  the  experiences  of  the  first,  when  everything 
was  new,  and  was  seized  upon  by  his  insatiable  curiosity. 
It  was  a  journey  of  business,  and  was  executed  with  a 
vigour  and  rapidity  remarkable  in  so  old  a  man.  There 
were  fewer  complaints  about  sleep — fewer  complaints  of 
any  kind.  How  well  his  sui-veying  work  M^as  done,  the 
history  of  Frederick's  campaigns,  when  he  came  to  write 


Tnspeciion  of  BaMlejielih.  193 

tliein,  were  ample  evidence.  He  speaks  lightly  of  having 
seen  Kolin,  Torgau,  &c.,  <fec.  ^o  one  would  gue^  from 
reading  these  short  notices  that  he  had  mastered  the  de- 
tails of  every  field  which  he  visited  ;  not  a  turn  of  the 
ground,  not  a  hrook,  not  a  wood,  or  spot  where  wood  had 
been,  had  escaped  him.  Each  picture  was  complete  in 
itself,  unconf used  with  any  other ;  and,  besides  the  pict- 
nre,  there  was  the  character  of  the  soil,  the  extent  of 
cultivation — every  particle  of  information  which  would 
help  to  elucidate  the  story. 

There  are  no  mistakes.  Military  students  in  Germany 
are  set  to  learn  Frederick's  battles  in  Carlyle's  account  of 
them — altogether  an  extraordinary  feat  on  Carlyle's  part, 
to  have  been  accomplished  in  so  short  a  time.  His  friends 
had  helped  him  no  doubt ;  but  the  eye  that  saw  and  the 
mind  that  comprehended  were  his  own. 

Very  soon  after  his  return  the  already  finished  volumes 
of  *  Frederick  '  were  given  to  the  world.  No  work  of  his 
liad  as  yet  obtained  so  instant  and  wide  a  welcome.  The 
literary  success  was  immediate  and  exceptionally  great. 
2,000  copies  had  been  printed — they  were  sold  at  the  first 
issue.  A  second  2,000  were  disposed  of  almost  as  rapidly, 
and  by  December  there  was  a  demand  for  more.  lie  had 
liimself  been  singularly  indifferent  on  this  part  of  the 
business.  In  his  summer  correspondence  there  is  not  a 
single  word  of  expectation  or  anxiety.  As  little  was  there 
sign  of  exultation  when  the  world's  verdict  was  pronounced. 
The  child  that  is  born  with  greatest  difficulty  is  generally 
a  favourite,  but  it  was  not  so  in  this  instance.  In  his 
journal  he  speaks  of  the  book  as  *  by  far  the  most  heart- 
rending enterprise  he  had  ever  had '  as  *  worth  nothing,' 
though  '  faithfully  done  on  his  part.'  In  Scotland  he  de- 
scribes himself  as  having  been  *  pei*fectly  dormant,'  *  in  a 
sluggish,  sad  way,  till  the  end  of  August.'  In  Gennany 
he  had  seen  the  battlefields — '  a  quite  frightful  month  of 
Vol.  IV.— 13 


194  CarlyMs  Life  m  London. 

physical  discomfort,'  with  no  result  that  he  conld  be  sure 
of,  '  except  a  great  mischief  to  health.'  lie  had  returned, 
he  said,  '  utterly  broken  and  degraded.'  This  state  of 
feeling,  exaggerated  as  it  was,  survived  the  appearance  of 
the  two  volumes.  He  had  complained  little  while  the 
journey  was  in  progress — when  he  was  at  home  again 
there  was  little  else  but  sadness  and  dispiritment. 

Journal. 

December  28th,  1858. — Book  was  pubHslied  soon  after  my  re- 
turn ;  has  been  considerably  more  read,  than  usual  with  books  of 
mine  ;  much  babbled  of  in  newspapers.  No  better  to  me  than  the 
barking  of  dogs.  Verachtung,  ja  Niclit  achtung  my  sad  feeling 
about  it.  Officious  people  three  or  four  times  put  *  reviews  '  into 
my  hands,  and  in  an  idle  hour  I  glanced  partly  into  these  ;  but  it 
Would  have  been  better  not,  so  sordidly  ignorant  and  impertinent 
were  they,  though  generally  laudatory.  Ach  Gott,  alle'm,  allein  auf 
dieser  Erde!  However,  the  fifth  thousand  is  printed,  paid  for  I 
think — some  2,800^.  in  all — and  will  be  sold  by-and-by  with  a 
money  profit,  and  perhaps  others  not  useless  to  me.  One  has  to 
believe  that  there  are  rational  beings  in  England  who  read  one's 
poor  books  and  are  silent  about  them.  Edition  of  works  ^  is  done 
too.  Larkin,  a  providential  blessing  to  me  in  that  and  in  the 
'  Frederick.*  I  am  fairly  richer  at  this  time  than  I  ever  was,  in 
the  money  sense — rich  enough  for  all  practical  purposes — otherwise 
no  luck  for  me  till  I  have  done  the  final  two  volumes.  Began 
that  many  weeks  ago,  but  cannot  get  rightly  into  it  yet,  struggle 
as  I  may.  Health  unfavourable,  horse  exercise  defective,  villan- 
ous  ostlers  found  to  be  starving  my  horse.  Much  is  'defective,' 
much  is  against  me  ;  especially  my  own  fidelity  of  perseverance  in 
endeavor.  Ah  me,  would  I  were  through  it !  I  feel  then  as  if 
sleep  would  fall  upon  me,  perhaps  the  last  and  perfect  sleep.  I 
haggle  and  struggle  here  all  day,  ride  then  in  the  twilight  like  a 
haunted  ghost ;  speak  to  nobody  ;  have  nobody  whom  it  gladdens 
me  to  speak  to.     Truce  to  complaining. 

A  few  words  follow  which  I  will  quote  also,  as  they  tell 
of  something  which  proved  of  immeasurable  consequence, 
both  to  Carlyle  and  to  his  wife. 

1  Collected  edition  of  Carlyle' s  works. 


Second  Marriage  of  Lord  Aahhurton.  195 

Lord  Ashburton  lias  wedded  again— a  Miss  Stuart  Mackenzie — 
and  they  are  off  to  Egypt  about  a  fortnight  ago.  *  The  clianges  of 
this  age,'  as  minstrel  Bums  has  it,  *  which  fleeting  Time  pro- 
cureth ! '    Ah  me  I  ah  me  I 

Carlyle  sighed ;  but  the  second  Lady  Ashburton  became 
the  guardian  genius  of  the  Cheyne  liow  household ;  to 
Mrs.  Carlyle  the  tenderest  of  sisters,  to  Carlyle,  especially 
after  his  own  bereavement,  sister,  daughter,  mother,  all 
that  can  be  conveyed  in  the  names  of  the  warmest  human 
ties.  .  .  But  the  acquaintance  had  yet  to  begin.  Miss 
Stuart  Mackenzie  had  hitherto  been  seen  by  neither  of 
them. 


CHAPTER  XXY. 

A.D.  1859-62.     JET.  64-67. 

Effects  of  a  Literary  Life  upon  the  Character — Evenings  in  Cheyne 
Bow — Summers  in  Fife — Visit  to  Sir  George  Sinclair,  Thurso 
Castle — Mrs.  Carlyle's  Health — Death  of  Arthur  Clough — In- 
timacy with  Mr.  Euskin— Party  at  the  Grange — ^Description 
of  John  Keble — '  Unto  this  Last.' 

]^o  one  who  has  read  the  letters  of  Carlyle  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters  can  entertain  a  doubt  of  the  tenderness  of  his 
heart,  or  of  liis  real  gratitude  to  tliose  relations  and  friends 
who  were  exerting  themselves  to  be  of  use  to  him.  As 
little  can  anyone  have  failed  to  notice  the  waywardness  of 
his  humour,  the  gusts  of  '  unjust  impatience'  and  ^ sulky 
despair '  with  which  he  received  sometimes  their  best  en- 
deavours to  serve  him,  or,  again,  the  remorse  w^ith  which 
he  afterwards  reflected  on  his  unreasonable  outbursts. 
'  The  nature  of  the  beast '  was  the  main  explanation.  His 
temperament  was  so  constituted.  It  could  not  be  altered, 
and  had  to  be  put  up  with,  like  changes  of  weather.  But 
nature  and  circumstances  worked  together ;  and  Lord  Jef- 
frey had  judged  rightly  when  he  said  that  literature  w^as 
not  the  employment  best  suited  to  a  person  of  Carlyle's 
disposition.  In  active  life  a  man  works  at  the  side  of 
others.  He  has  to  consider  them  as  well  as  himself.  He 
has  to  check  his  impatience,  he  has  to  listen  to  objections 
even  when  he  knows  that  he  is  rights  He  must  be  content 
to  give  and  take,  to  be  indifferent  to  trifles,  to  know  and 
feel  at  all  times  that  he  is  but  one  among  many^  who  have 


Temptations  of  a  Literary  Life,  197 

all  their  humours.  Every  day,  every  hour  teaches  him 
the  necessity  of  self-restraint.  The  man  of  letters  has  no 
such  wholesome  check  upon  himself,  lie  lives  alone, 
thinks  alone,  works  alone.  He  must  listen  to  his  own 
mind  ;  for  no  other  mind  can  help  him.  Ho  requires  cor- 
lection  as  others  do ;  but  he  must  be  his  own  school- 
master. His  peculiarities  are  part  of  his  originality,  and 
may  not  be  eradicated.  The  friends  among  whom  ho 
lives  are  not  the  partners  of  his  employment ;  they  share 
in  it,  if  they  share  at  all,  only  as  instruments  or  depend- 
ants. Thus  he  is  an  autocrat  in  his  own  circle,  and  ex- 
posed to  all  the  temptations  which  beset  autocracy.  Ho  is 
subject  to  no  will,  no  law,  no  authority  outside  himself ; 
and  the  finest  natures  suffer  something  from  such  un- 
bounded independence.  .  .  .  Carlyle  had  been  made  by 
nature  sufficiently  despotic,  and  needed  no  impulse  in  that 
direction  from  the  character  of  his  occupations, — while  his 
very  virtues  helped  to  blind  him  when  it  would  have  been 
better  if  he  could  have  been  more  on  his  guard.  He  knew 
that  his  general  aim  in  life  was  pure  and  unselfish,  and 
that  in  the  use  of  his  time  and  talents  he  had  nothing  to 
fear  from  the  sternest  examination  of  his  stewardship. 
His  conscience  was  clear.  His  life  from  his  earliest  years 
had  been  pure  and  simple,  without  taint  of  selfish  ambi- 
tion. He  had  stood  upright  always  in  many  trials.  He 
had  become  at  last  an  undisputed  intellectual  sovereign 
over  a  large  section  of  his  contemporaries,  who  looked 
to  him  as  disciples  to  a  master  whose  word  was  a  law  to 
their  belief.  And  thus  habit,  temperament,  success  itself 
had  combined  to  deprive  hini  of  the  salutary  admonitions 
with  which  the  wisest  and  best  of  mortals  cannot  entirely 
dispense.  From  first  to  last  he  was  surrounded  by  people 
who  allowed  him  his  own  way,  because  tliey  felt  his  supe- 
riority— who  found  it  a  privilege  to  minister  to  him  as  they 
became  more  and  more  conscious  of  his  greatuees — who. 


198  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

when  their  eyes  were  open  to  his  defects,  were  content  to 
put  lip  with  them,  as  the  mere  accidents  of  a  nervously 
sensitive  organization. 

This  was  enough  for  friends  who  could  be  amused  by 
peculiarities  from  which  they  did  not  personally  suffer. 
But  for  those  who  actually  lived  with  him — for  his  wife 
especially,  on  whom  the  lire-sparks  fell  first  and  always, 
and  who  could  not  escape  from  them — the  trial  was  hard. 
The  central  grievance  was  gone,  but  was  not  entirely  for- 
gotten. His  letters  had  failed  to  assure  her  of  his  affec- 
tion, for  she  thought  at  times  that  they  must  be  written 
for  his  biographer.  She  could  not  doubt  his  sincerity 
when,  now  after  his  circumstances  became  more  easy,  he 
gave  her  free  connnand  of  money  ;  when,  as  she  could  no 
longer  walk,  he  insisted  that  she  should  have  a  brougham 
twice  a  week  to  drive  in,  and  afterwards  gave  her  a  car- 
riage of  her  own.  But  affection  did  not  prevent  outbursts 
of  bilious  humour,  under  which,  for  a  whole  fortnight,  she 
felt  as  if  she  was  '  keeper  in  a  mad-house.'  When  he  was 
at  a  distance  from  her  he  was  passionately  anxious  about 
]ier  health.  "When  he  was  at  home,  his  own  discomforts, 
real  or  imaginary,  left  no  room  for  thought  of  others. 
'  If  Carlyle  wakes  once  in  a  night,*  she  said  to  me,  '.he 
will  complain  of  it  for  a  week.  I  wake  thirty  times  every 
night,  but  that  is  nothing.'  l^otwithstanding  all  his  res- 
olutions, notwithstanding  the  fall  of  '  the  scales  from  his 
eyes '  and  the  intended  amendment  for  the  future,  things 
relapsed  in  Cheyne  Bow  after  Carlyle  returned  from  Ger- 
many, and  settled  again  to  his  work,  much  into  their  old 
condition.  Generally  the  life  was  smooth  and  uneventful, 
but"  the  atmosphere  was  always  dubious,  and  a  disturbed 
sleep  or  an  indigestion  would  bring  on  a  thunder-storm. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  grew  continually  more  feeble,  continual  ner- 
vous anxiety  allowing  her  no  chance  to  rallj^ ;  but  her 
indomitable  spirit  held  her  up  ;  she  went  out  little  in  the 


Mrs.  CarlyUa  Health.  199 

evenings,  but  she  had  her  own  small  tea  parties,  and  the 
talk  was  as  brilliant  as  ever.  Carlyle  worked  all  day, 
rode  late  in  tlie  afternoon,  came  home,  slept  a  little,  then 
dined  and  went  out  afterwards  to  walk  in  the  dark.  If  any 
of  us  were  to  spend  the  evening  there,  we  generally  found 
her  alone  ;  then  he  would  come  in,  take  possession  of  the 
conversation  and  deliver  himself  in  a  stream  of  splendid 
monologue,  wise,  tender,  scornful,  humorous,  as  the  in- 
clination took  him — but  never  bitter,  never  malignant, 
always  genial,  the  fiercest  denunciations  ending  in  a  burst 
of  laughter  at  his  own  exaggerations.  Though  I  knew 
things  wei*e  not  altogether  well,  and  her  drawn,  suffering 
face  haunted  me  afterwards  like  a  sort  of  ghost,  I  felt  for 
myself  that  in  him  there  could  be  nothing  really  wrong, 
and  that  he  was  as  good  as  he  was  great. 

So  passed  the  next  two  or  three  years ;  he  toiling  on  un- 
weariedly,  dining  nowhere,  and  refujiing  to  be  disturbed — 
contenting  himself  with  now  and  then  sending  his  brother 
word  of  his  general  state. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  March  14,  1859. 
We  go  along  here  in  the  common  way,  or  a  little  below  it,  nei- 
ther of  us  specially  definable  as  ill,  but  suflfering  (possibly  from 
the  muddy  torpid  weather),  under  unusual  feebleness,  and  wishing 
we  were  a  httle  stronger.  Jane  keeps  afoot ;  takes  her  due  drives, 
tries  walking  when  the  weather  permits,  and  is  surely  a  good  deal 
better  than  she  has  been  wont  to  be  in  the  last  two  years.  But 
her  weakness  is  very  great ;  her  jiower  of  eat'mrf  runs  very  low, 
poor  soul.  To  day  she  seems  to  be  trying  total  abstinence,  or 
something  near  it,  by  way  of  remedy  to  a  constant  nausea  she  com- 
plains of.  '  We  must  do  the  best  we  can  for  a  living,  boy  ! '  As 
to  me,  the  worat  is  a  fatal  inabiUty  to  get  forward  with  my  work  in 
this  state  of  nerves  and  stomach.  I  am  dark,  inert,  and  stupid  to 
a  painful  degree,  when  progress  dei>ends  almost  altogether  on 
vivacity  of  nerves.  The  remedy  is  .  .  .  there  is  no  remedy 
but  boring  along  mole-hke  or  mulo-iike,  and  refusing  to  lie  down 
•altogether. 


200  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

In  June  after  '  months  of  uselessness  and  wretchedness,' 
he  was  '  tumbled  '  into  what  he  called  '  active  chaos,'  i.e.  , 
he  took  a  house  for  the  summer  at  Hum  hie,  near  Aber- 
dour  in  Fife.  The  change  was  not  very  successful.  He 
had  his  horse  with  him,  and  '  rode  fiercely  about,  haunted 
by  the  ghosts  of  the  past.'  Mrs.  Carlyle  followed  him 
down.  John  Carlyle  was  charged  to  meet  her  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  see  her  safe  for  the  rest  of  her  journey.  'Be 
good  and  soft  with  her,'  he  said, '  you  have  no  notion  whar<i 
ill  any  flurry  or  fuss  does  her,  and  I  know  always  how 
kind  your  thoughts  are,  and  also  hers,  in  spite  of  any  flaw& 
that  may  arise.'  Was  it  that  he  could  not  '  reck  his  own 
rede  ! '  or  was  Mrs.  Carlyle  herself  exaggerating,  when  she 
described  the  next  fortnight  with  him  at  Humbie,  as  like 
being  in  a  '  madhouse '  ?  They  went  afterwards  to  th^ 
cousins  at  Auchtertool,  and  from  Auchtertool  she  wrot(? 
the  sad  letter  to  a  young  friend  in  London  w^ho  had  asked 
to  be  congratulated  on  her  marriage.^  They  remained  in 
Sxjotland  till  the  end  of  September.  At  Chelsea  again,  on 
the  3rd  of  October,  he  wrote  a  few  words  in  his  journal^ 
the  last  entered  there  for  several  years. 

'  Returned  Saturday  night  from  a  long  miscellaneous  sojourn  in 
Scotland  which  has  lasted  veiy  idly  and  not  too  comfortably  since 
the  last  days  of  June.  Bathing,  solitary  riding,  walking,  one  or 
two  fits  of  cataiThal  illness  of  a  kind  I  did  not  like ;  this  and 
much  solitary  musing,  reminiscence,  and  anticipation  of  a  painful 
kind  filled  that  fallow  period.  Perhaps  both  of  us  are  a  little 
better  ;  one  cannot  hope  much.  A  terrible  task  now  ahead  again. 
Steady  !  steady  !  To  it  then !  Isabella,  my  good  sister-in-law  at 
Scotsbrig,  was  gone.  Poor  brother  Jamie  !  We  looked  at  the 
place  of  gi-aves  Tuesday  last.  There  at  least  is  peace ;  there  is 
rest.     Foolish  tears  almost  surprised  me.' 

There  was  a  short  visit  to  the  Grange  in  January  (1860), 
another  in  April  to  Lord  Sandwich  at  Hinchinbrook — 
from  which  he  was  frightened  away  prematurely  by  the 

1  Letters  and  Memorials,  vol.  ii.  p.  141. 


Visit  to  Thurso  Castle.  201 

arrival  of  Hepworth  Dixon.  Ho  had  evidently  been 
troublesome  at  home,  for  from  Hinchinbrook  he  wrote  to 
his  wife  begging  her  *  to  be  patient  with  him.'  *  He 
was  the  unhappy  animal,  but  did  not  mean  ill.'  With 
these  exceptions,  and  a  week  at  Brighton  in  July,  he 
stayed  fixed  at  his  desk,  and  in  August,  leaving  his  wife 
in  London,  where  nervousness  had  reduced  her  to  the 
brink  of  a  bilious  fever,  ho  went  off,  taking  his  work  with 
him,  to  stay  at  Thurso  Castle  with  Sir  George  Sinclair. 
There  he  remained  several  weeks  in  seclusion  as  complete 
as  he  could  wish.  His  letters  were  full  and  regular,  though 
they  did  not  give  entire  satisfaction. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Ckn-lyle, 

Off  Aberdeen  Harbour  :  Angust  3,  186a 
Arrived  here  after  what  they  call  an  excellent  voyage,  which  in- 
deed has  had  good  weather  and  all  other  fine  qualities  except  that 
finest,  the  possibility  of  reasonable  sleeping.  I  have  seldom  seen 
such  an  overcrowded  piggery  of  a  place  as  we  had  to  try  that  lat- 
ter operation  in. 

I  did  manage  a  little,  however,  each  night.  I  feel  wonderfully 
tolerable  after  all  is  done ;  the  sound  in  my  ears  either  gone  or 
else  lost  amid  other  innumerable  clankings,  snorings,  and  clang- 
oui-8.  Thank  God  we  are  got  so  far  with  success.  Could  I  only 
hear  that  my  i>oor  Jeannie  is  a  Uttle  come  round  again,  now  that 
thq  noises  and  distiurbances  from  my  side  of  the  house  are  done. 

Thorso  Castle  :  August  6,  1860. 
Saturday— wet,  dreary,  gaunt,  and  strange— was  a  little  dis- 
piriting, in  spite  of  the  cordial  and  eager  welcome  of  all  these 
good  people.  But  that  night  I  had  a  capital  sleep.  Next  morn- 
ing I  contrived  to  shirk  church  (which  I  shall  always  do)  and 
walked  along  the  many-sounding  shore  with  a  book,  a  cape,  and 
a  little  tobacco,  some  mile  or  two  among  the  cliffs  and  crags. 
Not  a  human  being  visible ;  only  the  grand  ever-mui-muring  sea ; 
I'entland  Frith  clear  as  crystal,  with  Orkney  Hoy  Island,  a  fine 
precipitous  sea-girt  mountain,  to  our  left,  and  Dunnet  Head  some 
six  or  seven  miles  ahead.  There  I  sate  and  sauntered  in  the  de- 
voutest,  quietest,  and  handsomest  mood  I  have  been  in  for  many 


202  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

months.  Then  I  read,  bathed  carefully,  and  set  out  vigorously 
walking  to  arrive  warm  and  also  punctual.  In  short,  dear,  I  did 
well  yesterday  and  have  had  again  a  tolerable  sleep.  Nay,  have 
gol  my  affairs  settled,  so  to  speak ;  breakfast  an  hour  before  the 
family  (who  don't  get  into  their  worship,  &c.,  till  ten),  am  not  to 
show  face  at  all  till  three  p.m.  and  mean  actually  to  try  some 
work.     If  I  can  it  will  be  very  fine  for  me. 

The  little  butler  here  seems  one  of  the  cleverest,  willingest 
creatures  I  have  seen  for  a  long  time,  and  is  zealously  anxious 
(as  hitherto  all  and  sundry  are)  to  oblige  the  monster  come  among 
them. 

Thurso,  visible,  about  two  gunshots  off,  from  one  of  my  win- 
dows, is  a  poor  grey  town,  treeless,  with  one  or  two  steam-engines 
in  it,  and  a  dozen  or  two  of  fishing-boats.  Nor  is  Thurso  Castle 
much  of  a  mansion,  at  least  till  you  examine  it  attentively.  But 
it  is  really  an  extensive,  well-furnished,  human  dwelling-place  ; 
and  its  situation  with  its  northern  parapet,  looking  down  upon  the 
actual  waves  which  never  go  a  stone's  throw  off,  is  altogether  charm- 
ing ;  a  j)lace  built  at  three  different  times,  from  1664  downwards 
(quite  modern  this  my  northern  side  of  it),  with  four  or  five  poor 
candle-extinguisher-like  towers  in  different  parts,  very  bare,  but 
trim,  with  walks  and  sheltering  offices  and  walls.  No  saddle 
horse  ;  not  even  a  saddle  shelty  ;  but  there  is  a  carriage  and 
pair  for  the  womankind,  with  whom  I  have  not  yet  gone,  though  I 
mean  to. 

August  14. 
My  dear  little  Goody, — I  could  have  been  somewhat  fretted 
yesterday  morning.  First  at  your  long  delay  in  writing,  and  your 
perverse  notion  of  my  neglect  in  that  particular,  also  of  your  scorn- 
ful condemnation  of  my  descriptive  performance  (which  I  can  as- 
sure you  was  not  done  for  the  sake  of  future  biographers,  nor 
done  at  all  except  with  considerable  pain  and  inconvenience  and 
at  the  very  first  moment  possible  in  my  gloom  and  sickliness,  if 
you  had  known  of  it).  But  all  feelings  were  swallowed  up  in  one 
— grief  and  alarm  at  the  sleepless,  excited,  and  altogether  j)aintul 
state  my  poor  little  Jeannie  had  evidently  got  into.  A  long  letter 
was  to  have  been  written  yesterday  afternoon  after  work  and  bath- 
ing and  dinner  were  well  over.  But,  alas  !  at  dinner  (which  had 
been  unexpectedly  crowded  forward  to  two  p.m.  instead  of  three, 
and  had  sent  me  into  the  sea  and  back  again  at  full  gallop,  not  to 
miss  the  essential  daily  bath) — at  dinner,  which  I  found  them  de- 


Thurso  Caatle,  203 

nominating  luncheon,  I  was  informed  that  three  miles  off,  at  some 

Highland  loird's  named  Major  — '■ ,  there  stood  an  engagement 

for  me  of  a'  strict  natuie,  and  that  there  I  was  to  dine.  Nimmer 
ttnd  Nimmei'mehr.  The  major  hod  not  even  asked  me.  I  want  no 
acquaintance  with  any  laird  or  major.  I  positively  cannot  go.  It 
was  in  vain  tliat  I  insisted  and  reiterated  in  this  key.  Poor  Sir 
George  offered  to  dine  now  and  go  walking  with  me  on  the  sands 
while  the  major's  dinner  went  on. 

In  short  I  found  I  should  give  offence  and  seem  a  very  surly, 
unthankful  fellow  by  persisting,  so  I  was  obliged  to  go.  The 
laird,  an  old  Peninsula  soldier,  was  not  a  bad  fellow ;  quite  the 
reverse  indeed  ;  had  a  wife  and  wife's  sister  and  a  son  just  from 
India  and  the  Crimea  ;  finally  a  veiy  j^retty  Highland  place,  and  a 
smart  douce  little  daughter  who  imade  the  Caithness  dialect  beau- 
tiful. Of  myself  I  will  say  only  that  1  have  cunningly  adjusted 
my  hours ;  am  called  at  eight,  bathe  as  at  home,  run  out  from 
heat :  breakfast  privately^  and  by  this  means  shii'k  *  prayers ' — 
am  at  work  by  ten,  bathe  at  two,  and  do  not  show  face  till  three. 
After  which  comes  walking,  comes  probably  driving.  Country 
equal  to  Craigenputtock  for  picturesque  eSectSy plus  the  sea,  which 
is  always  one's  friend.  I  have  got  some  work  done  every  day ; 
have  slept  every  night,  never  quite  ill,  once  or  twice  splendidly. 

Carljle  abhorred  the  *  picturesque '  when  sought  after 
of  set  purpose.  He  was  exquisitely  sensitive  of  natural 
beauty,  when  lie  came  across  it  naturally  and  surrounded 
by  its  own  associations.  Here  is  a  finished  picture  which 
he  sent  to  his  brother. 

To  John  Carlyle, 

Thurso  :  August  24,  1860. 
I  sit  boring  over  my  work,  not  idle  quite,  but  v^ith  little  visible 
result,  and  that  has  considerably  weakened  the  strength  of  my  \w- 
sition  here.  I  dimly  intended  to  hold  on  for  *  about  a  month  ; ' 
and  this  is  not  unlikely  to  be  the  limit.  Sir  G.  has  always  pro- 
fessed to  be  clear  for  two  months  as  the  minimum,  but  will  i)er- 
haps  be  at  bottom  not  so  avcrs^  to  the  shorter  term,  there  being 
such  a  cackle  of  grandchildren  here,  with  governesses  &c.,  whom 
he  sees  to  be  a  mere  bore  to  me,  though  to  him  such  a  joy.  Yes- 
terday we  went  to  »Tohn  o'  Groats  actually.  It  is  about  twenty 
miles  from  us  to  the  little  seaside  inn.     There  you  dismount,  walk 


204  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

to  Groats,  i.e.  to  the  mythic  site  of  Groats — a  short  mile — thence 
two  rather  long  ones  to  the  top  of  Duncansby  Head. 

It  is  one  of  the  prettiest  shores  I  ever  saw  :  trim  grass  or  fine 
corn,  even  to  the  very  brow  of  the  sea.  Sand  (where  there  is  sand) 
as  white  as  meal,  and  betwe^  sand  and  farm-field  a  glacis  or  steep 
slope,  which  is  also  covered  with  grass,  in  some  places  thick  with 
meadow-sweet,  *  Queen  of  the  Meadows,'  and  quite  odoriferous  as 
well  as  trim.  The  island  of  Stroma  flanks  it,  across  a  sound  of 
perhaps  two  miles  broad.  Three  ships  were  passing  westward  in 
our  time.  The  old  wreck  of  a  fourth  was  still  traceable  in  frag- 
ments, sticking  in  the  sand,  or  leant  on  harrows  higher  up  by  way 
of  fence.  The  site  of  Groats  has  a  barn  short  way  behind  it,  and 
a  cottage  short  way  to  its  left  looking  seaward.  The  waves  are 
about  a  pistol  shot  off  at  high  water.  It  stands — i.e.  a  house 
would  stand — very  beautifully,  as  at  the  bottom  of  a  kind  of  scoop 
rising  slowly  behind  into  highish  country,  ditto  to  west,  though 
not  into  great  heights  at  all,  and  the  big  Duncansby  quite  grandly 
screening  it  both  from  E.  and  N.E.;  and  all  was  so  admirably 
still  and  solitary  :  extensive  Cheviot  sheep  nibbling  all  about,  and 
no  other  living  thing,  like  a  dream.  The  Orkneys,  Eonald  Shay, 
Skerries,  &c.,  lay  dim,  dreamlike,  with  a  beauty  as  of  sorrow  in 
the  dim  grey  day.  Groats'  site  appeared  to  me  terribly  like  some 
extinct  farmer's  lime-kiln.  Eain  broke  out  on  coming  home,  and 
I  lost  a  good  portion  of  my  sleep  last  night  by  the  adventure. 
This  is  all  I  have  to  say  of  Groats  or  myself. 

Amid  these  scenes,  and  heartily  conscious  of  his  host's 
kind  consideration  for  him,  he  stayed  out  his  holiday.  He 
had  wished  his  wife  to  have  a  taste  of  Scotch  air  too  be- 
fore the  winter,  and  had  arranged  that  she  should  go  to 
his  sister  at  the  Gill.  She  had  started,  and  was  staying  on 
the  way  w^ith  her  friends  the  Stanleys  at  Alderley,  when 
her  husband  discovered  that  he  could  do  no  more  at 
Thurso,  and  must  get  home  again.  The  period  of  his  visit 
had  been  indefinite.  She  had  supposed  that  he  would  re- 
main longer  than  he  proposed  to  do.  The  delay  of  posts 
and  a  misconstruction  of  meanings  led  Mrs.  Carlyle  to  sup- 
pose that  he  was  about  to  return  to  Chelsea  immediately, 
and  that  her  own  presence  there  would  be  indispensable ; 


Thurso  CdsUe.  205 

and,  with  a  resentment,  which  she  did  not  care  to  conceal, 
at  his  imagined  want  of  consideration  for  her,  she  gave 
up  her  expedition  and  went  back.  It  was  a  mistake 
throughout,  for  he  had  intended  himself  to  take  Annan- 
dale  on  his  way  home  from  Thurso ;  but  he  had  not  been 
explicit  enough,  and  she  did  not  spare  him.  He  was  very 
miserable  and  very  humble.  He  promised  faithfully  tliat 
when  at  home  again  he  would  worry  her  no  more  till  she 
was  strong  enough  to  be  '  kept  onasy.' 

I  will  be  quiet  as  a  dream  (he  said).  Surely  I  ought  to  be  rather 
a  protection  to  your  poor  sick  fancy  than  a  new  disturbance.  Be 
still ;  be  quiet.     I  swear  to  do  thee  no  mischief  at  all. 

Alas  !  he  might  swear ;  but  with  the  excellentest  inten- 
tions, he  was  an  awkward  companion  for  a  nervous,  suffer- 
ing woman.  He  had  meant  no  mischief.  It  was  impossi- 
ble that  he  could  have  meant  it.  His  misfortune  was  that 
he  had  no  perception.  He  never  understood  that  a  deli- 
cate lady  was  not  like  his  own  robuster  kindred,  and  might 
be  shivered  into  fiddle- strings  while  they  would  only  have 
laughed. 

This  was  his  last  visit  to  Scotland  before  the  completion 
of  '  Frederick.'  A  few  words  to  Mr.  Erskine,  who  had 
written  to  inquire  about  his  wife,  give  a  more  accurate  ac- 
count of  his  own  condition  than  it  gave  of  hers. 

To  Thomas  Erskinet  Esq. 

Chelsea  :  October  12,  1860. 
I  got  home  nearly  three  weeks  ago.  Jane  was  not  weaker  than 
I  expected ;  her  house,  poor  soul,  all  set  in  order  on  an  improved 
footing  as  to  servants,  almost  pathetic  as  well  as  beautiful  to  me. 
I  am  happy  to  report  that  she  has  grown  stronger  ever  since,  and 
is  now  once  more  in  her  usual  posture.  I  have  got  my  smithy  fire 
kindled  again,  and  there  is  sound  of  the  hammer  once  more  audi- 
ble. I  have  sunk  silent,  humiliated,  endeavouring  to  be  quietly, 
wisely,  not  foolishly,  diligent  with  all  the  strength  left  to  me. 
*  Frederick  *  is  not  the  most  pious  of  my  heroes  ;  but  the  world 
awakens  in  me  either  piety  or  else  despair.    Why  have  I  not  a 


206  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

more  pious  labour  to  end  with  ?  perhaps  not  to  be  able  to  end. 
But  one  must  not  quarrel  with  one's  kind  of  labour.  To  do  it  is 
the  thing  requisite.  My  horse  is  potent  for  riding,  and  one  of  the 
loyallest  quadrupeds.  That  perhaps  is  the  finest  item  in  the  horo- 
scope. 

The  '  improved  footing '  as  to  servants  had  been  Car- 
Ijle's  own  arrangement.  In  his  wife's  weakened  condition 
he  thought  it  no  longer  right  that  she  should  be  left  to 
struggle  on  with  a  single  maid-of-all-work.  He  had  in- 
sisted that  she  should  have  a  superior  class  of  woman  as 
cook  and  housekeeper,  with  a  girl  to  assist.  He  himself 
was  fixed  to  his  garret  room  again,  rarely  stirring  out  ex- 
cept to  ride,  and  dining  nowhere  save  now  and  then  with 
Forster,  to  meet  only  Dickens,  who  loved  him  with  all  his 
heart. 

The  new  year  brought  the  Grange  again,  where  Mrs. 
Carlyle  was  now  as  glad  to  go  as  before  she  had  been  re- 
luctant. 

Everybody  (he  wrote)  as  kind  as  possible,  especially  the  lady. 
This  party  small  and  insignificant ;  nobody  but  ourselves  and 
Venables,  an  honest  old  dish,  and  Kingsley,  a  new,  of  higher  pre- 
tensions, but  inferior  flavour. 

The  months  went  by.  On  March  27  a  bulletin  to  his 
brother  says : — '  I  have  no  news  ;  nothing  but  the  old  si- 
lent struggle  continually  going  on ;  for  my  very  dreams, 
when  I  have  any,  are  apt  to  be  filled  with  it,  A  daily  ride 
nearly  always  in  perfect  solitude,  a  daily  and  nightly  es- 
cort of  confused  babblements,  and  thoughts  not  cheerful 
to  speak  of,  yet  with  hope  more  legible  at  times  than  for- 
merly, and  on  the  whole  with  health  better  rather  than 
worse.' 

In  this  year  he  lost  a  friend  whom  he  valued  bej^ond 
any  one  of  the  younger  men  whom  he  had  learnt  to  know. 
Arthur  Clough  died  at  Florence,  leaving  behind  him,  of 
work  accomplished,  a  translation  of  Plutarch,  a  volume  of 


Death  of  Arthur  Cloxujh,  207 

poems  (which  by-and-by,  when  the  sincere  writing  of  this 
ambitious  age  of  ours  is  sifted  from  the  insincere,  may 
survive  as  an  evidence  of  what  lie  might  have  been  had 
fuhiess  of  years  been  granted  to  him),  and,  besides  these,  a 
beautiful  memory  in  the  minds  of  those  who  had  known 
liim.  I  knew  what  Carlyle  felt  about  him,  and  I  tried  to 
induce  him  to  wnte  some  few  words  which  might  give 
tliat  memory  an  enduring  form. 

I  quite  agree  in  what  you  say  of  poor  Clough  (he  replied).  A 
man  more  vivid,  ingenious,  veracious,  mildly  radiant,  I  have  sel- 
dom met  with,  and  in  a  character  so  honest,  modest,  kindly.  I 
expected  very  considerable  things  of  him.  As  for  the  *  two  pages ' 
you  propose,  there  could,  had  my  hands  been  loose,  have  been  no 
valid  objection,  but,  as  it  is,  my  hands  are  tied. 

Every  available  moment  had  been  guaranteed  to  *  Fred- 
ei-ick.'  Clough  was  gone ;  but  another  friendship  had 
been  formed  which  v^as  even  more  precious  to  Carlyiu. 
He  had  long  been  acquainted  with  Ruskin,  but  hitherto 
there  had  been  no  close  intimacy  between  them,  aH  not 
being  a  subject  especially  interesting  to  him.  But  Iluskin 
was  now  writing  his  *  Letters  on  Political  Economy '  in  the 
'Coi-nh ill  Magazine.'  The  world's  scornful  anger  wit- 
nessed to  the  effect  of  his  strokes,  artd  Carlyle  was  de- 
lighted. Political  Economy  had  been  a  creed  while  it 
pretended  to  be  a  science.  Science  rests  on  reason  and 
experiment,  and  can  meet  an  opponent  with  cahnness.  A 
creed  is  always  sensitive.  To  express  a  doubt  of  it  shakes 
its  authority,  and  is  therefore  treated  as  a  moral  ofFence. 
One  loo"ks  back  with  amused  interest  on  that  indignant 
outcry  now,  when  the  pretentious  science  lias  ceased  to 
answer  a  political  purpose  and  has  been  banished  by  its 
chief  professor  to  the  exterior  ])lanet8. 

But  Carlyle  had  hitherto  been  preaching  alone  in  the 
wilderness,  and  rejoiced  in  this  new  ally,  lie  examined 
Iluskin  more  can'rulh       He   ^a\v.  as   who   that   looked 


208  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

could  help  seeing,  that  here  was  a  true  *  man  of  genius,' 
peculiar,  uneven,  passionate,  but  wielding  in  his  hand  real 
levin  bolts,  not  mere  flashes  of  light  merely — but  fiery  ar- 
rows which  pierced,  where  they  struck,  to  the  quick.  He 
was  tempted  one  night  to  go  to  hear  Ruskin  lecture,  not 
on  the  '  Dismal  Science,'  but  on  some  natural  phenomena, 
which  Ruskin,  while  the  minutest  observer,  could  convert 
into  a  poem.  '  Sermons  in  Stones  '  had  been  already  Car- 
lyle's name  for  '  The  Stones  of  Venice.'  Such  a  preacher 
he  was  willing  to  listen  to  on  any  subject. 

To  John  Garlyle. 

Chelsea  :  April  23,  1861. 
Friday  last  I  was  persuaded — in  fact  had  unwarily  compelled 
myself,  as  it  were — to  a  lecture  of  Buskin's  at  the  Institution,  Al- 
bemarle-street.  Lecture  on  Tree  Leaves  as  physiological,  picto 
rial,  moral,  symbolical  objects.  A  crammed  house,  but  tolerable 
to  me  even  in  the  gallery.  The  lecture  was  thought  to  '  break 
down,'  and  indeed  it  quite  did  '  as  a  lecture  ;  '  but  only  did  from 
embarras  des  richesses — a  rare  case.  Ruskin  did  blow  asunder  as 
by  gunpowder  explosions  his  leaf  notions,  which  were  manifold, 
curious,  genial ;  and,  in  fact,  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  heard  in 
that  place  any  neatest  thing  I  liked  so  well  as  this  chaotic  one. 

This  was  a  mere  episode,  however,  in  a  life  which  was 
as  it  were  chained  down  to  '  an  undoable  task.'  Months 
w^ent  by  ;  at  last  the  matter  became  so  complicated,  and 
the  notes  and  corrections  so  many,  that  the  printers  were 
called  in  to  help.  The  rough  fragments  of  manuscript 
were  set  in  type  that  he  might  see  his  way  through  them. 

You  never  saw  such  a  jumble  of  horrors  as  the  first  j)roofs  are 
(he  said  in  rex)orting  the  result).  In  my  bewildering  indexle^^ 
state,  and  with  such  books  and  blockheadism,  I  cannot  single- 
handed  deal  with  the  thing  except  stage  after  stage  in  this  tentative 
way.  Often  enough  I  am  doing  the  very  last  revise  when,  after 
such  screwing  and  torturing,  the  really  vital  point  of  the  matter — 
rule  of  all  the  articulation  it  must  have — will  disclose  itself  to  me, 
overlooked  by  the  fifty  Dryasdusts  I  have  been  consulting. 

Alas  !  (he  cries  at  another  time)  my  poor  old  limbs  are  nothing 


Views  on  the  American  Civil  War.  209 

like  so  equal  to  this  work  as  they  once  were  ;  a  fact  that,  but  an 
irremediable  one.  Si^ldom  was  a  \)oot  man's  heart  so  near  broken 
by  utter  weariness,  disgust,  and  long-continued  despair  over  an 
undoable  job.  The  only  point  is,  said  heart  must  not  break  alto- 
gether, hvLtfinWi  if  it  can. 

No  leisure — leisure  even  for  thought — could  be  spared 
to  otlicr  subjects.  Even  the  great  phenomenon  of  tlio 
century,  the  civil  war  in  America,  passed  by  him  at  its 
opening  without  commanding  his  serious  attention.  To 
him  that  tremendous  struggle  for  the  salvation  of  the 
American  nationality  was  merely  the  efflorescence  of  the 
*  Nigger  Emancipation  '  agitation,  which  he  had  always 
despised.  *No  war  ever  raging  in  my  time,'  he  said, 
when  the  first  news  of  the  fighting  came  over,  '  was  to  me 
more  profoundly  foolish-looking.  Neutral  I  am  to  a  de- 
gree :  I  for  one.'  lie  spoke  of  it  scornfully  as  *  a  smoky 
chimney  which  had  taken  fire.'  When  provoked  to  say 
something  about  it  publicly,  it  was  to  write  his  brief  Ilias 
Americaiia  in  mice. 

Peter  of  the  North  (to  Paul  of  the  South)  :  Paul,  you  unaccount- 
able scoundrel,  I  find  you  hire  your  servants  for  life,  not  by  the 
month  or  year  as  I  do.     You  aie  going  sti*aight  to  Hell,  you 

Paul :  Good  words,  Peter.  The  risk  is  my  own.  I  am  willing 
to  take  the  risk.  Hire  you  your  sen^ants  by  the  month  or  the  day, 
and  get  straight  to  Heaven  ;  leave  me  to  my  own  method. 

Peter :  No,  I  won't.  I  will  beat  your  brains  out  first !  [And  is 
trying  dreadfully  ever  since,  but  cannot  yet  manage  it.'] 

T.  C. 

At  the  Grange,  where  he  had  gone  in  January,  1862,  the 
subject  was  of  course  much  talked  of.  The  Argyles  were 
there,  the  Sartoris's,  the  Kingsleys,  the  Bishop  of  Oxford, 
Milnes,  Venables,  and  others.  The  Duke  and  Duchess 
were  strong  for  the  North,  and  there  was  much  arguing, 

<  MacviUlan*»  Magazine^  Atigust,  1868.— Carlyle  admitted  to  me  after  the  war 
ended  that  perhaps  he  had  not  seen  into  the  liottom  of  the  matter.    Nererthe- 
leaa,  he  republished  the  Uia»  in  his  Collected  Works. 
Vol.  IV.— 14 


210  Carlyle^s  Life  i7i  London. 

not  to  Carlyle's  satisfaction.  The  Bishop  and  he  were 
always  pleased  to  meet  each  other,  but  he  was  not  equally 
tolerant  of  the  Bishop's  friends.  Of  one  of  these  there  is 
a  curious  mention  in  a  letter  written  from  the  Grange 
during  this  visit.  Intellect  was  to  him  a  quality  which  only 
showed  itself  in  the  discovery  of  truth.  In  science  no 
man  is  allowed  to  be  a  man  of  intellect  who  uses  his  facul- 
ties to  go  ingeniously  wrong.  Still  less  could  Carljde  ac- 
knowledge the  presence  of  such  high  quality  in  those  who 
went  wrong  in  more  important  subjects.  Cardinal  New- 
man, he  once  said  to  me,  had  not  the  intellect  of  a  mod- 
erate-sized rabbit.  He  was  yet  more  uncomplimentary  to 
another  famous  person  whom  the  English  Church  has 
canonized. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

The  Grange  :  January,  1862. 
We  are  a  brisk  party  here,  full  of  locomotion,  speculation,  and 
really  are  in  some  sort  agreeable  to  one  another.  The  Bear,  the 
Duke,  with  the  womankind  wholly,  are  off  some  twenty  miles, 
mostly  in  an  open  carriage.  The  Bishop  is  gone  with  them,  to 
see  some  little  ape  called  Keble,  of  'The  Christian  Year.'  He  (the 
Bishop)  is  very  perceptibly  older  in  the  face,  but  no  change  in  the 
shifty,  cunning,  thorough-going  ways  of  him.  He  took  me  riding 
yesterday,  galloping  as  if  for  the  King's  Hundred  to  see  something 
which  he  called  the  Beacon  Hill,  which  we  never  saw,  daylight 
failing  us,  though  we  had  a  gallop  of  some  sixteen  miles.  You 
may  figure  whether  it  suited  me  in  my  feverish  feeble  mood.  The 
most  agreeable  man  among  us  is  the  Duke  ;  really  a  good,  solid, 
Scotch  product.  Takes,  I  think,  considerably  to  me,  as  does  his 
Duchess,  though  I  do  not  speak  much  to  her.  Find  the  Nigger 
question  much  a  topic  with  her,  and  by  no  means  a  safe  one. 

'Frederick,'  meanwhile,  was  making  progress,  though 
but  slowly.  The  German  authorities  he  found  to  be  raw 
metallic  matter,  unwrought,  unorganised,  the  ore  nowhere 
smelted  out  of  it.  It  is  curious  that  on  the  human  side  of 
things  the  German  genius  should  be  so  deficient,  but  so  it 
is.     We  go  to  them  for  poetry,  philosophy,  criticism,  the- 


Meivtal  Dialogue.  211 

ology.  They  have  to  come  to  us  for  a  biography  of  their 
greatest  poets  and  the  history  of  their  greatest  king.  The 
standard  Life  of  Goethe  in  Germany  is  Lewes's;  the 
standard  History  of  Frederick  is  Carlyle's.  Bat  the  labour 
was  desperate,  and  told  heavily  both  ,on  him  and  on  his 
wife.  When  the  summer  came  she  went  for  change  to 
Folkestone.     He  in  her  absence  was  like  a  forsaken  child. 

Nothing  is  wrong  about  the  house  here  (he  wrote  to  her),  nor 
liave  I  failed  in  sleep  or  had  other  misfortune  ;  nevertheless,  I  am 
dreatlfully  low-spirited,  and  feel  like  a  child  wishing  Mammy  back 
[itaUcs  his  own].  Perhaps,  too,  she  is  as  well  away  for  the  mo- 
ment. The  truth  is,  I  am  under  medical  appliances,  which  ren- 
ders me  for  this  day  the  wretchedest  nearly  of  all  the  sons  of 
Adam  not  yet  condemned,  in  fact,  to  the  gallows.  I  have  not 
spoken  one  word  to  anybody  since  you  went  away.  Oh  !  for  God's 
sake,  take  care  of  yourself  !    In  the  earth  I  have  no  other. 

Again,  a  few  days  later ; — 

July  3,  1S62. 
Silence,  even  of  the  saddest,  sadder  than  death,  is  often  prefer- 
able to  shake  the  nonsense  out  of  one.  Last  night,  in  getting  to 
bed,  I  said  to  myself  at  last,  '  Impossible,  sir,  that  you  have  no 
friend  in  the  big  Eternities  and  Immensities,  or  none  but  Death, 
as  you  whimper  to  yourself.  You  have  had  friends  who, before  the 
birth  of  you  even,  were  good  to  you,  and  did  give  you  several 
things.  Know  that  you  have  friends  unspeakably  important,  it 
appears,  and  let  not  their  aweful  looks  or  doings  quite  terrify  you. 
You  require  to  have  a  heart  like  theirs  in  some  sort.  Who  knows? 
And  fall  asleep  upon  that  honourable  pillow  of  whinstone.' 

This  was  a  singular  dialogue  for  a  man  to  hold  with 
himself.  'A  spectre  moving  in  a  world  of  spectres' — 
*  one  mass  of  burning  sulphur ' — these  also  were  images 
in  which  he  now  and  then  described  his  condition.  At 
siH'li  times,  if  his  little  finger  ached  he  imagined  that  no 
inoi  tal  had  ever  suffered  so  before.  If  his  liver  was  amiss 
he  was  a  chained  Prometheus  with  the  vulture  at  his 
breast,  and  eai-th,  ether,  sea,  and  sky  were  invoked  to 
witness  his  injuries,     Wlion  the  fit  was  on  liim  ho  could 


212  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

not,  would  not,  restrain  himself,  and  now  when  Mrs. 
Carljle's  condition  was  so  delicate,  her  friends,  medical 
and  others,  had  to  insist  that  thej  must  be  kept  apart  as 
much  as  possible.  He  himself,  lost  as  he  was  without  her, 
felt  the  necessity,  and  when  she  returned  from  Folkestone 
he  sent  her  off  to  her  friend  Mrs.  Russell  in  Mthsdale. 
Some  one,  I  know  not  who,  wrote  to  entreat  her  to  stay 
away  as  long  as  possible.     The  letter  runs  : — 

I  hope  you  do  not  think  of  returning  home.     Should  Mr.  Car- 

lyle  become  rampageous  I  will  set  Mrs. on  to  pray  for  him. 

Should  you,  during  your  absence,  require  any  transaction  in 
London  to  be  carried  out  with  more  than  usual  intelUgence  and 
finesse,  remember  Mi. 

But  no  one  was  more  anxious  than  Carlyle  himself  now 
was  that  she  should  be  saved  from  worries.  As  soon  as 
he  had  clearly  recognised  how  ill  she  was,  his  own  griev- 
ances disappeared.  There  was  no  '  rampaging.'  He  was 
all  that  was  thoughtful  and  generous.  He  called  himself 
a  '  desultory  widow,'  but  he  tried  his  best  to  be  happy  in 
his  desertion,  or  at  least  to  make  her  believe  him  so. 
.  .  .  She  was  afraid  of  costing  him  money.  '  I  posi- 
tively order,  he  wrote  to  her,  that  there  be  no  pinching 
about  money  at  all.  Fie,  fie  !  Here  is  a  draft,  which  Dr. 
Russell,  as  banker,  will  pay  when  you  ask.'  Not  a  com- 
plaint escaped  him  in  his  daily  letters.  All  was  repre- 
sented as  going  well ;  '  Frederick '  was  going  well ;  the 
sleep  was  w^ell ;  the  servants  were  doing  well.  Fruit, 
flowers,  cream,  <fec.,  came  regularly  in  from  Addiscombe — 
game  boxes  came  with  the  grouse  season.  There  was  a 
certain  botheration  from  visitors — '  dirty  wretches '  would 
call  and  be  troublesome.  It  was  the  year  of  the  second 
Exhibition,  which  I  believe  Carlyle  never  entered,  but 
which  brought  crowds  to  London — a  party  from  Edinburgh 
among  the  rest  who  were  well  anathematized :  but  some 
one  came  now  and  then  who  was  not  '  dirty,'  and  on  the 


Ir^royrenH  of  ^ Frederick, ^  213 

whole  the  book  went  "forward,  and  he  himself  worked,  and 
rode,  and  grumbled  at  nothing,  save  the  Scotch  Sunday 
Post  arrangements,  which  interrupted  his  correspondence. 

*  Truly,'  he  said  *  that  Phariseean  Sabbath  and  mode  of 
disarming  Almighty  wrath  by  something  better  than  the 
secret  pour  lui  plaire  is  getting  quite  odious  to  me,  or  in- 
convenient rather,  for  it  has  long  been  odious  enough.' 

The  third  volume  of  '  Frederick '  was  finished  and 
published  this  summer.  The  fourth  volume  was  getting 
into  type,  and  the  fifth  and  last  was  partly  written.  The 
difficulties  did  not  diminish  ;  '  one  only  consolation  there 
was  in  it,  that  '  Frederick '  w^as  better  worth  doing  than 
other  foul  tasks  he  had  had. 

At  times  (he  said)  I  am  quite  downcast  on  my  lonesome,  long, 
interminable  journey  through  the  not  Mount  Horeb  wilderness, 
but  the  beggarly  '  Creca  Moss  '  one.  Then  at  other  times  I  think 
with  myself,  *  Creca,'  and  the  Infinite  of  ban'en,  brambly  moor  is 
under  Heaven  too.  "What  if  thou  could'st  show  the  blockhead 
populations  that  withal,  and  get  honourably  out  of  this  heart- 
breaking affair,  pitied  by  the  Eternal  Powers !  If  I  can  hold  out 
another  year.  Surely  before  this  time  twelvemonth  we  shall  have 
done. 

He  rarely  looked  at  reviews.  He  hardly  ever  read  a 
newspaper  of  any  kind.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever 
saw  one  in  his  room.  For  once,  however,  he  made  an 
exception  in  favour  of  a  notice  of  his  last  volume  in  the 

*  Saturday.' 

It  was  by  Venables  (he  said),  not  a  bad  thing  at  all — excellent 
in  comimrison  to  much  that  I  supi)ose  to  be  going,  though  I  have 
only  read  this  and  one  other.  They  really  do  me  no  ill,  the 
adverse  ones,  or  inconceivably  little,  and  hardly  any  good,  the 
most  flattering  of  the  friendly.  In  my  bitter  solitary  straggle, 
continued  almost  to  the  death,  I  have  got  to  such  a  contempt  for 
the  babble  of  idle,  ignorant  mankind  about  me  as  is  sometimes 
almost  appalling  to  myself.  What  am  I  to  them  in  the  presence 
of  very  fate  and  fact  ? 


214  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

He  had  one  other  great  pleasure  this  summer.  Ruskin's 
'  Unto  this  Last,'  a  volume  of  essays  on  political  economy, 
was  now  collected  and  re-published.  Carlyle  sent  a  copy 
to  Mr.  Erskine,  with  the  following  letter: — 

To  T.  Erskine,  Linlathen. 

Chelsea  :  August  4,  1863. 

Dear  Mr.  Erskine, — Here  is  a  very  bright  little  book  of  Ruskin's, 
which,  if  you  have  not  already  made  acquaintance  with  it,  is  ex- 
tremely well  worth  reading.  Two  years  ago,  when  the  Essays 
came  out  in  the  fashionable  magazines,  there  rose  a  shriek  of 
anathema  from  all  newspaper  and  publishing  persons.  But  I  am 
happy  to  say  that  the  subject  is  to  be  taken  up  again  and  heartily 
gone  into  by  the  valiant  Ruskin,  who,  I  hope,  will  reduce  it  to  a 
dog's  likeness — its  real  physiognomy  for  a  long  time  past  to  the 
unenchanted  eye,  and  peremjotorily  bid  it  prepare  to  quit  this 
afflicted  earth,  as  R.  has  done  to  several  things  before  now.  He 
seems  to  me  to  have  the  best  talent  for  preaching  of  all  men  now 
alive.  He  has  entirely  blown  up  the  world  that  used  to  call  itself 
of  '  Art,'  and  left  it  in  an  impossible  posture,  uncertain  whether  on 
its  feet  at  all  or  on  its  head,  and  conscious  that  there  will  be  no 
continuing  on  the  bygone  terms.  If  he  could  do  as  much  for 
Political  Economy  (as  I  hope),  it  would  be  the  greatest  benefit 
achieved  by  preaching  for  generations  past ;  the  chasing  off  of  one 
of  the  brutallest  nightmares  that  ever  sate  on  the  bosom  of  slum- 
brous mankind,  kept  the  soul  of  them  squeezed  down  into  an 
invisible  state,  as  if  they  had  no  soul,  but  only  a  belly  and  a  beaver 
faculty  in  these  last  sad  ages,  and  were  about  arriving  we  know 
where  in  consequence.  I  have  read  nothing  that  pleased  me  bet- 
ter for  many  a  year  than  these  new  Ruskiniana. 

I  am  sitting  here  in  the  open  air  under  an  awning  with  docu- 
mentary materials  by  me  in  a  butler's  tray,  desk,  &c.  for  writing, 
being  burnt  out  of  my  garret  at  last  by  the  heat  of  the  sun.  I  hope 
by  this  time  twelvemonth  I  may  be  at  Linlathen  again  ;  at  least  I 
do  greatly  wish  it,  if  the  hope  be  too  presumptuous.  There  is  a 
long  stiff  hill  to  get  over  first,  but  this  is  now  really  the  last ;  fifth 
and  final  volume  actually  in  hand,  and  surely,  with  such  health  as 
I  still  have,  it  may  be  possible.  I  must  stand  to  it  or  do  worse. 
.  .  .  London  has  not  been  so  noisy  and  ugly  for  ten  years,  but 
this  too  is  ending.     .     .     .     Adieu,  dear  friend  ! 

Yours  ever,  T.  Caelyle. 


CHAPTER  XXYI. 

A.D.  1864.     ^T.  69. 

Pers<mal  intercom-se— Daily  habits— Charities — Conversation — 
Modem  science  and  its  tendencies — Faith  without  sight — 
Bishop  Coleuso — The  Broad  Church  School — Literature — 
Misfortunes  of  Fritz— Serious  accident  to  Mrs.  Carlyle— Her 
strange  illness— Folkestone — Death  of  Lord  Ashburton — Mrs. 
Carlyle  in  Scotland — Her  slow  recovery — *  Frederick '  finished. 

So  far  my  account  of  Carlyle  has  been  taken  from  written 
memorials,  letters,  diaries,  and  autobiographic  fragments. 
For  the  future  the  story  will  form  itself  round  my  own 
personal  intercourse  with  him.  Up  to  1800  I  had  lived  in 
the  country.  1  had  paid  frequent  visits  to  London,  and 
while  there  had  seen  as  much  of  Cheyne  Row  and  its  in- 
habitants as  Mrs.  Carlyle  would  encourage.  I  had  ex- 
changed letters  occasionally  with  her  and  her  husband, 
but  purely  on  external  subjects,  and  close  personal  inti- 
macy between  us  there  had  as  yet  been  none.  In  the 
autumn  of  that  year,  however,  London  became  my  home. 
Late  one  afternoon,  in  the  middle  of  the  winter,  Carlyle 
called  on  me,  and  said  that  he  wished  to  see  more  of  me — 
wished  me  in  fact  to  be  his  companion,  so  far  as  I  could, 
in  his  daily  rides  or  walks.  Ride  with  him  I  could  not^ 
having  no  horse;  but  the  walks  were  most  welcome — and 
from  that  date,  for  twenty  years,  up  to  his  own  death,  ex- 
cept when  either  or  both  of  us  were  out  of  town,  I  never 
ceased  to  see  him  twice  or  three  times  a  week,  and  to  have 
two  or  three'  hours  of  conversation  with  him.     The  first 


216  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

of  these  walks  I  well  remember,  from  an  incident  which 
happened  in  the  course  of  it.  It  was  after  nightfall.  At 
Iljde  Park  Corner,  we  found  a  blind  beggar  anxious  to 
cross  over  from  Knightsbridge  to  Piccadill}^,  but  afraid  to 
trust  his  dog  to  lead  him  through  the  carts  and  carriages. 
Carlyle  took  the  beggar's  arm,  led  him  gently  over,  and 
offered  to  help  him  further  on  his  way.  He  declined 
gratefully ;  we  gave  him  some  trifle,  and  followed  him  to 
see  what  he  would  do.  His  dog  led  him  straight  to  a 
public-house  in  Park  Lane.  We  both  laughed,  and  I  sup- 
pose I  made  some  ill-natured  remark.  *  Poor  fellow,'  was 
all  that  Carlyle  said ;  '  he  perhaps  needs  warmth  and  shel- 
ter.' 

This  was  the  first  instance  that  T  observed  of  what  I 
found  to  be  a  universal  habit  with  him.  Though  still  far 
from  rich,  he  never  met  any  poor  creature,  whose  distress 
was  evident,  without  speaking  kindly  to  him  and  helping 
him  more  or  less  in  one  way  or  another.  Archbishop 
Whately  said  that  to  relieve  street  beggars  was  a  public 
crime.  Carlyle  thought  only  of  their  misery.  '  Modern 
life,'  he  said,  '  doing  its  charity  by  institutions,'  is  a  sad 
hardener  of  our  hearts.  '  We  should  give  for  our  own 
sakes.  It  is  very  low  water  with  the  wretched  beings,  one 
can  easily  see  that.' 

Even  the  imps  of  the  gutters  he  would  not  treat  as  rep- 
robates. He  would  drop  a  lesson  in  their  way,  sometimes 
with  a  sixpence  to  recommend  it.  ...  A  small  vagabond 
was  at  some  indecency.  Carlyle  touched  him  gently  on 
the  back  with  his  stick.  '  Do  you  not  know  that  you  are 
a  little  man,'  he  said,  '  and  not  a  whelp,  that  you  behave 
in  this  way  ? '  There  was  no  sixpence  this  time.  After- 
wards a  lad  of  fourteen  or  so  stopped  us  and  begged. 
Carlyle  lectured  him  for  beginning  so  early  at  such  a  trade, 
told  him  how,  if  he  worked,  he  might  have  a  worthy  and 
respectable  life  before  him,  and  gave  him  sixpence.     The 


Carlijh  as  a  Compa/nion.  217 

boy  shot  off  down  the  next  alley.  *  There  is  a  sermon 
fallen  on  stony  ground,*  Carlyle  said,  *  but  we  must  do 
what  we  can.'  The  crowds  of  children  growing  up  iii 
London  affected  him  with  real  pain ;  these  small  plants, 
each  with  its  head  just  out  of  the  ground,  with  a  whole 
life  ahead,  and  such  a  training !  I  noticed  another  trait 
too — Scotch  thrift  showing  itself  in  liatred  of  waste.  If 
'  lie  saw  a  crust  of  bread  on  the  roadway  he  would  stop  to 
pick  it  up  and  put  it  on  a  step  or  a  railing.  Some  poor 
devil  might  be  glad  of  it,  or  at  worst  a  dog  or  a  sparrow. 
To  destroy  wholesome  food  was  a  sin.  He  was  veiy  tender 
about  animals,  especially  dogs,  who,  like  horses,  if  well 
treated,  were  types  of  loyalty  and  fidelity.  I  horrified  him 
with  a  story  of  my  Oxford  days.  The  hounds  had  met  at 
Woodstock.  They  had  drawn  the  covers  without  finding 
a  fox,  and,  not  caring  to  have  a  blank  day,  one  of  the 
whips  had  caught  a  passing  sheepdog,  rubbed  its  feet  with 
aniseed,  and  set  it  to  run.  It  made  for  Oxford  in  its  ter- 
ror, the  hounds  in  full  cry  behind.  They  caught  the 
wretched  creature  in  a  field  outside  the  town,  and  tore  it 
to  pieces.  I  never  saw  Carlyle  more  affected.  He  said  it 
was  like  a  human  soul  flying  for  salvation  before  a  legion 
of  fiends. 

Occupied  as  he  had  always  seepied  to  be  with  high-soar- 
ing speculations,  scornful  as  he  had  appeared,  in  the  '  Lat- 
ter-day Pamphlets,'  of  benevolence,  philanthrop}^  and 
small  palliations  of  enormous  evils,  I  had  not  expected  so 
much  detailed  compassion  in  little  things.  I  found  that 
personal  sympathy  with  suffering  lay  at  the  root  of  all  his 
thoughts ;  and  that  attention  to  little  things  was  as  char^ 
actei-istic  of  his  conduct  as  it  was  of  his  intellect. 

His^  conversation  when  we  were  alone  together  was  even 
more  surprising  to  me.  I  had  been  accustomed  to  hear 
him  impatient  of  contradiction,  extravagantly  exaggera- 
tive,   overbearing    opposition    with    bursts    id    scornful 


218  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

humour.  In  private  I  found  liim  impatient  of  nothing 
but  of  being  bored ;  gentle,  quiet,-  tolerant  ;  sadly-\\\x- 
moured,  but  never  ^/Z-humoured  ;  ironical,  but  without  the 
savageness,  and  when  speaking  of  persons  always  scrupu- 
lously just.  He  saw  through  the  'clothes'  of  a  man  into 
what  he  actually  was.  But  the  sharpest  censure  was 
always  qualified.  He  would  say,  'If  we  knew  how  he 
came  to  be  what  he  is,  poor  fellow,  we  should  not  be  hard 
with  him.' 

But  he  talked  more  of  things  than  of  persons,  and  on 
every  variety  of  subject.  He  had  read  more  miscellane- 
ously than  any  man  I  have  ever  known.  His  memory  was 
extraordinary,  and  a  universal  curiosity  had  led  him  to 
inform  himself  minutely  about  matters  which  I  might 
have  supposed  that  he  had  never  heard  of.  With  English 
literature  he  w^as  as  familiar  as  Macaulay  was.  French 
and  German  and  Italian  he  knew  infinitely  better  than 
Macaulay,  and  there  was  this  peculiarity  about  him,  that 
if  he  read  a  book  which  struck  him  he  never  I'ested  till  he 
had  learnt  all  that  could  be  ascertained  about  the  writer 
of  it.  Thus  his  knowledge  was  not  in  points  or  lines,  but 
complete  and  solid. 

Even  in  his  laughter  he  was  always  serious.  I  never 
heard  a  trivial  word  from  him,  nor  one  which  he  had  bet- 
ter have  left  unuttered.  He  cared  nothing  for  money, 
nothing  for  promotion  in  the  world.  If  his  friends 
gained  a  step  anywhere  he  was  pleased  with  it — but  only 
as  worldly  advancement  might  give  them  a  chance  of 
wider  usefulness.  Men  should  think  of  their  duty,  he 
said ; — let  them  do  that,  and  the  rest,  as  much  as  was 
essential,  '  would  be  added  to  them.'  I  was  with  him  one 
beautiful  spring  day  under  the  trees  in  Hyde  Park,  the 
grass  recovering  its  green,  the  elm  buds  swelling,  the 
scattered  crocuses  and  snowdrops  shining  in  the  sun.  The 
spring,  the.^nnual  resurrection  from  death  to  life,  was  es- 


Mistrust  of  Modetm  Science,  219 

pecially  affecting  to  him.  '  Beliold  the  lilies  of  the  field ! ' 
he  said  to  nie  ;  *  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin.  Yet 
Solomon,  in  all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. 
AVhat  a  word  was  that?  and  the  application  was  quite 
tnie  too.  Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow — CAre  only  for 
what  yon  know  to  be  right.     That  is  flie  rule.' 

lie  had  a  poor  opinion  of  what  is  called  science;  of 
political  economy ;  of  utility  as  the  basis  of  morals ;  and 
such-like,  when  they  dealt  a\  ith  liuinan  life,  lie  stood  on 
Kant's  Categorical  Imperative.  Right  was  right,  and 
wrong  was  wrong,  because  God  had  so  ordered ;  and  duty 
and  conduct  could  be  brought  under  analysis  only  when 
men  had  disowned  their  nobler  nature,  and  were  governed 
by  self-interest.  Interested  motives  might  be  compmted, 
and  a  science  might  grow  out  of  a  calculation  of  their 
forces.  But  love  of  Truth,  love  of  Righteousness — these 
were  not  calculable,  neither  these  nor  the  actions  proceed- 
ing out  of  them. 

Sciences  of  natural  things  he  always  respected.  Facts 
of  all  kinds  were  sacred  to  him.  A  fact,  whatever  it 
might  be,  was  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and 
so  was  related  to  the  Author  of  it.  Of  all  men  that  have 
ever  lived  he  honoured  few  more  than  Kepler.  Kepler's 
*  laws '  he  looked  on  as  the  grandest  physical  discovery 
ever  made  by  man  ;  and  as  long  as  philosophers  were 
content,  like  Kepler,  to  find  out  facts  without  building 
theories  on  them  to  dispense  with  God,  he  had  only  good 
to  say  of  thiem.  Science,  however,  in  these  latter  days, 
was  stepping  beyond  its  proper  province,  like  the  young 
Titans  trying  to  take  heaven  by  storm.  He  liked  ill  men 
like  Humboldt,  Laplace,  or  the  author  of  the  'Vestiges.' 
lie  refused  Darwin's  transmutation  of  species  as  un- 
proved ;  he  fought  against  it,  though  I  could  see  ho 
dreaded  that  it  might  turn  out  true.  If  man,  as  explained 
by  Science,  wa&  no  more  than  a  developed  auiuial,  aud 


220  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

conscience  and  intellect  but  developments  of  the  functions 
of  animals,  then  God  and  religion  were  no  more  than  in- 
ferences, and  inferences  which  might  be  lawfully  dis- 
puted. That  the  grandest  achievements  of  human  na- 
ture had  sprung  out  of  beliefs  which  might  be  mere 
illusions,  Carlyle  could  not  admit.  That  intellect  and 
moral  sense  should  have  been  put  into  him  by  a  Being 
which  had  none  of  its  own  was  distinctly  not  conceivable 
to  him.  It  jnight  perhaps  be  that  these  high  gifts  lay 
somewhere  in  the  original  germ,  out  of  which  organic  life 
had  been  developed ;  that  they  had  been  intentionally  and 
consciously  placed  there  by  the  Author  of  nature,  whom 
religious  instincts  had  been  dimly  able  to  discern.  It 
might  so  turn  out,  but  for  the  present  the  tendency  of 
science  was  not  in  any  such  direction.  The  tendency  of 
science  was  to  Lucretian  Atheism ;  to  a  belief  that  no  '  in- 
tention '  or  intending  mind  was  discoverable  in  the  imi- 
verse  at  all.  If  the  life  of  man  was  no  more  than  the  life 
of  an  animal — if  he  had  no  relation,  or  none  which  he 
could  discern,  with  any  being  higher  than  himself,  God 
would  become  an  unmeaning  word  to  him.  Carlyle  often 
spoke  of  this,  and  with  evident  uneasiness.  Earlier  in  his 
life,  while  he  was  young  and  confident,  and  the  effects  of 
his  religious  training  w^ere  fresh  in  him,  he  could  fling  off 
the  whispers  of  the  scientific  spirit  with  angry  disdain  ; 
the  existence,  the  omnipresence,  the  omnipotence  of  God, 
were  then  the  strongest  of  his  convictions.  The  faith  re- 
mained unshaken  in  him  to  the  end  ;  he  never  himself 
doubted  ;  yet  he  was  perplexed  by  the  indifference  with 
which  the  Supreme  Power  was  allowing  its  existence  to 
be  obscured.  I  once  said  to  him,  not  long  before  his 
death,  that  I  could  only  believe  in  a  God  which  did  some- 
thing. With  a  cry  of  pain,  w^hich  I  shall  never  forget,  he 
said,  '  He  does  nothing.'  For  himself,  however,  his  faith 
stood  firm.     He  did  not  believe  in  historical  Christianity. 


Meligion  and  Materialism,  221 

He  did  not  believe  that  the  facts  alleged  in  the  Apostles* 
creed  had  ever  really  happened.  The  resurrection  of  Christ 
was  to  him  only  a  symbol  of  a  spiritual  truth.  As  Christ 
rose  from  the  dead,  so  were  we  to  rise  from  the  death  of 
Bin  to  the  life  of  righteousness.  Not  that  Christ  had  act- 
ually died  and  had  risen  again.  He  was  only  believed  to 
have  died  and  believed  to  have  risen  in  an  age  when  le- 
gend was  history,  when  stories  were  accepted  as  true  from 
their  beauty  or  their  significance.  As  long  as  it  was  sup- 
posed that  the  earth  was  the  centre  of  the  universe,  that 
the  sky  moved  round  it,  and  that  sun  and  moon  and  stars 
had  been  set  there  for  man's  convenience,  when  it  was  the 
creed  of  all  nations  that  gods  came  down  to  the  earth,  and 
men  were  taken  into  heaven,  and  that  between  the  two  re- 
gions there  was  incessant  intercourse,  it  could  be  believed 
easily  that  the  Son  of  God  had  lived  as  a  man  among  men, 
had  descended  like  Hercules  into  Hades,  and  had  returned 
again  from  it.  Such  a  story  then  presented  no  internal 
difficulty  at  all.  It  was  not  so  now.  The  soul  of  it  was 
eternally  true,  but  it  had  been  bound  up  in  a  mortal  body. 
The  bmly  of  the  belief  was  now  perishing,  and  the  soul  of 
it  being  discredited  by  its  connection  with  discovered 
error,  was  suspected  not  to  be  a  soul  at  all ;  half  mankind, 
betrayed  and  deserted,  wei-e  rushing  off  into  materialism. 
Kor  was  materialism  the  worst.  Shivering  at  so  blank  a 
prospect,  entangled  in  the  institutions  which  remained 
standing  when  the  life  had  gone  out  of  them,  the  other 
half  were  *  reconciling  faith  with  reason/  pretending  to 
believe,  or  believing  that  they  believed,  becoming  hypo- 
crites, conscious  or  unconscious,  the  last  the  worst  of  the 
two.  not  daring  to  look  the  facts  in  the  face,  so  that  the 
vorv  sense  of  truth  was  withered  in  them.  It  was  to  make 
love  to  delusion,  to  take  falsehood  delil)erately  into  their 
hearts.  For  such  souls  there  was  no  hope  at  all.  Centu- 
ries of  spiritual  anarchy  lay  before  the  world  befoi-e  sin- 


223  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

cere  belief  could  again  be  generally  possible  among  men 
of  knowledge  and  insight.  With  the  half-educated  and 
ignorant  it  was  otherwise.  To  them  the  existing  religion 
might  still  represent  some  real  truth.  There  alone  w^as 
any  open  teaching  of  God's  existence,  and  the  divine  sanc- 
tion of  morality.  Each  year,  each  day,  as  knowledge 
spread,  the  power  of  the  established  religion  was  growing 
less  ;  but  it  was  not  yet  entirely  gone,  and  it  was  the  only 
hold  that  was  left  on  the  most  vital  of  all  truths.  Thus 
the  rapid  growth  of  materialism  had  in  some  degree  modi- 
fied the  views  which  Carlyle  had  held  in  early  and  mid- 
dle life.  Then  the  *  Exodus  from  Houndsditch '  had 
seemed  as  if  it  might  lead  immediately  into  a  brighter  re- 
gion. He  had  come  to  see  that  it  would  be  but  an  entry 
into  a  wilderness,  the  promised  land  lying  still  far  away. 
His  own  opinions  seemedjo  be  taking  no  hold.  He  had 
cast  his  bread  upon  the  waters  and  it  was  not  returning 
to  him,  and  the  exodus  appeared  less  entirely  desirable. 
Sometimes  the  old  fierce  note  revived.  Sometimes,  and 
more  often  as  he  grew  older,  he  wished  the  old  shelter  to 
be  left  standing  as  long  as  a  roof  remained  over  it — as 
long  as  any  of  us  could  profess  the  old  faith  with  com- 
plete sincerity.  Sincerity,  however,  was  indispensable. 
For  men  who  said  one  thing  and  meant  anotlier,  who  en- 
tered the  Church  as  a  profession,  and  throve  in  the  world 
by  it,  while  they  emasculated  the  creeds,  and  watered  away 
the  histories— for  them  Carlyle  had  no  toleration.  Relig- 
ion, if  not  honest,  was  a  horror  to  him.  Those  alone  he 
thought  had  any  right  to  teach  Christianity  who  had  no 
doubts  about  its  truth.  Those  who  were  uncertain  ought 
to  choose  some  other  profession,  and  if  compelled  to  speak 
should  show  their  colours  faithfully.  Thirlwall,  who  dis- 
charged his  functions  as  a  Macready,  he  never  blamed  to 
me ;  but  he  would  have  liked  him  better  could  he  have 
geen  him  at  some  other  employment.     The  Essayists  and. 


The  Broad  Church  Cl^gy,  223 

Reviewers,  the  Scptein  contra  Christum^  were  in  people's 
montlis  when  my  intimacy  with  Carlyle  began.  They  did 
not  please  liini.  He  considered  that  in  continuing  to  be 
clergymen  they  were  playing  tricks  with  their  consciences. 
The  Dean  of  Westminster  he  liked  personally,  almost 
loved  him  indeed,  yet  he  could  have  wished  him  anywhere 
but  where  he  was. 

*  There  goes  Stanley,'  he  said  one  day  as  we  passed  the 
Dean  in  the  park,  'boring  holes  in  the  bottom  of  the 
Church  of  England  ! '  Colenso's  book  came  out  soon  after. 
I  knew  Colenso ;  we  met  him  in  one  of  our  walks.  He 
joined  us,  and  talked  of  what  he  had  done" with  some  slight 
elation.  *  Poor  fellow ! '  said  Carlyle,  as  he  went  away ;  *  he 
mistakes  it  for  fame.  He  does  not  see  that  it  is  only  an 
extended  pillory  that  he  is  standing  on.'  I  thought  and 
think  this  judgment  a  harsh  one.  No  one  had  been  once 
more  anxious  than  Carlyle  for  the  '  Exodus.'  No  one  had 
done  more  to  bring  it  about  than  Colenso,  or  more  bravely 
faced  the  storm  which  he  had  raised,  or,  I  may  add,  more 
nobly  vindicated,  in  later  life,  his  general  courage  and 
honesty  when  he  stood  out  to  defend  the  Zulus  in  South 
Africa.  Stanley  spoke  more  truly,  or  more  to  his  own 
and  Colenso's  honour,  when  he  told  the  infuriated  Con- 
vocation to  its  face,  that  the  Bishop  of  Natal  was  the  only 
English  prelate  whose  name  would  be  remembered  in  the 
next  century.  Partly,  I  believe,  at  my  instance,  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle invited  Colenso  to  one  of  her  tea-parties,  but  it  was 
evident  that  he  suited  her  no  better  than  her  husband.  I 
told  her  so,  and  had  this  note  in  reply : — 

Oh,  my  dear  Mr.  Froude,  I  surely  couldn't  have  looked  so  borrl 
as  tliflt.  I  couldn't  because  I  wasn't.  I  own  to  feeling  rather 
antipathetic  to  tliat  anomalous  bishop.  A  man  arrived  at  the 
years  of  discretion  wearing  an  absurd  little  black  silk  apron,  dis* 
turbs  my  artistic  feelings  to  begin  with.  Then  consider  whom  I 
am  descended  from,  the  woman  who  when  J^ing  James  offered  to 


224  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

make  her  husband  a  bishop  if  she  would  persuade  him  to  return 
to  his  country  and  be  a  peaceable  subject,  held  up  her  apron  and 
answered,  *  I  would  rather  kepp  his  head  in  there.''  Add  to  all  this 
fhat  I  strongly  believe  with  a  German  friend  of  mine,  that  it  is 
the  viixing  up  of  things  which  is  the  Great  Bad  !  and  that  this  par- 
ticular l)ishop  mixes  up  a  black  silk  apron  with  arithmetical  con- 
futation of  the  Bible,  and  you  will  allow  that  I  have  better  reason 
than  a  woman  usually  has  for  first  impressions,  why  I  should  not 
take  to  Colenso.  But  I  was  really  not  bored  that  day.  You  came 
■\;\'ith  him  ;  you  were  there  ;  and,  without  meaning  ta  say  anything 
pretty  (which  is  far  from  my  line),  I  am  always  so  pleased  to  see 
you,  that  were  you  to  come  acccompanied  by  the — th.Q— first  gentle- 
man in  England,  I  should  rather  than  that  you  didn't  come  at  all. 

Literature  was  another  subject  on  which  Carljle  often 
talked  with  me.  In  his  Craigenputtock  Essays  he  had 
spoken  of  literature  as  the  highest  of  human  occupations, 
as  the  modern  priesthood,  &c.,  and  so  to  the  last  ho 
thought  of  it  when  it  was  the  employment  of  men  whom 
nature  had  furnished  gloriously  for  that  special  task,  like 
Goethe  and  Schiller.  But  for  the  writing  function  in  the 
existing  generation  of  EnglisJmien  he  had  nothing  but 
contempt.  A  '  man  of  letters,'  a  man  wlio  had  taken  to 
literature  as  a  means  of  living,  was  generally  some  one 
who  had  gone  into  it  because  he  was  unfit  for  better  work, 
because  he  was  too  vain  or  too  self-willed  to  travel  along 
the  beaten  highways,  and  his  writings,  unless  he  was  one 
of  a  million,  began  and  ended  in  nothing.  Life  was 
action,  not  talk.  The  speech,  the  book,  the  review  or 
newspaper  article  was  so  much  force  expended— force  lost 
to  practical  usefulness.  When  a  man  had  uttered  his 
thoughts,  still  more  when  he  was  always  uttering  them, 
he  no  longer  even  attempted  to  translate  them  into  act. 
lie  said  once  to  me  that  England  had  produced  her  great- 
est men  before  she  began  to  have  a  literature  at  all. 
Those  Barons  who  signed  their  charter  by  dipping  the 
points  of  their  steel  gauntlets  in  the  ink,  had  more  mrtue^ 


ZUeratiire  and  the  Value  of  It  225 

manhoody  practical  force  and  wisdom  than  any  of  their 
successors,  and  when  the  present  disintegration  had  done 
its  work,  and  healthy  organic  tissue  began  to  form  again, 
tongues  would  not  clatter  as  they  did  now.  Tliose  only 
would  speak  who  had  call  to  speak.  Even  the  Sunday 
sermons  would  cease  to  be  necessary.  A  man  was  never 
made  wiser  or  better  by  talking  or  being  talked  to.  He 
was  made  better  by  being  trained  in  habits  of  industry,  by 
being  enabled  to  do  good  useful  work  and  earn  an  honest 
living  by  it.  His  excuse  for  his  own  life  was  that  there 
had  been  no  alternative.  Sometimes  he  spoke  of  his 
writings  as  having  a  certain  value ;  generally,  however,  as 
if  they  had  little,  and  now  and  then  as  if  they  had  none. 
'  If  there  be  one  thing,'  he  said,  '  for  which  I  have  no 
special  talent,  it  is  literature.  If  I  had  been  taught  to  do 
the  simplest  useful  thing,  I  should  have  been  a  better  and 
happier  man. .  All  that  I  can  say  for  myself  is,  that  I  have 
done  my  best.'  A  strange  judgment  to  come  from  a  man 
who  has  exerted  so  vast  an  influence  by  writing  alone.  Yet 
in  a  sense  it  was  true.  If  literature  means  the  expression 
by  thought  or  emotion,  or  the  representation  of  facts  in 
completely  beautiful ybrm,  Carlyle  '<^?a*  inadequately  gifted 
for  it.  But  his  function  was  not  to  please,  but  to  instinct. 
Of  all  human  writings,  those  which  perhaps  have  produced 
the  deepest  effect  on  the  history  of  the  world  have  been 
St.  Paul's  Epistles.  What  Carlyle  had  he  had  in  common 
with  St.  Paul :  extraordinary  intellectual  insight,  extraor- 
dinary sincerity,  extraordinary  i-esolution  to  speak  out  the 
truth  as  ho  perceived  it,  as  if  driven  on  by  some  impelling 
internal  necessity.  He  and  St.  Paul — I  know  not  of 
whom  else  the  same  thing  could  be  said — wrote  as  if  they 
were  pregnant  with  some  world-important  idea,  of  which 
they  were  labouring  to  be  delivered,  and  the  eflFect>'  is  the 
more  striking  frum  the  abruptness  and  want  of  artifice  iu 
the  utterance.  Whether  Carlyle  would  liave  been  happier, 
Vol.  IV.— 15 


226.  Carlyle\s  Life  in  London. 

more  useful,  had  he  been  otlierwise  occupied,  I  cannot  say. 
He  had  a  fine  aptitude  for  all  kinds  of  business.  In  any 
practical  problem,  wliether  of  politics  or  private  life,  he 
had  his  finger  always,  as  if  by  instinct,  on  the  point  upon 
which  the  issue  would  turn.  Arbitrary  as  his  tempera- 
ment was,  he  could,  if  occasion  rose,  be  prudent,  forbear- 
ing, dexterous,  adroit.  He  would  have  risen  to  greatness 
in  any  profession  which  he  had  chosen,  but  in  such  a 
w^orld  as  ours  he  must  have  submitted,  in  rising,  to  the 
*  half -sincerities^  which  are  the  condition  of  success.  We 
should  have  lost  the  Carlyle  that  we  know.  It  is  not  cer- 
tain that  we  should  have  gained  an  equivalent  of  him. 

This  is  the  sort  of  thing  which  I  used  daily  to  hear  from 
Carlyle.  His  talk  was  not  always,  of  course,  on  such 
grave  matters.  He  was  full  of  stories,  anecdotes  of  his 
early  life,  or  of  people  that  he  had  known. 

For  more  than  four  years  after  our  walks  began,  he  was 
still  engaged  with  '  Frederick.'  He  spoke  freely  of  what 
was  uppermost  in  his  mind,  and  many  scenes  in  the  his- 
tory were  rehearsed  to  me  before  they  appeared,  Yoltaire, 
Maupertuis,  Chatham,  Wolfe  being  brought  up  as  living 
figures.  He  never  helped  himself  with  gestures,  but  his 
voice  was  as  flexible  as  if  he  had  been  trained  for  the  stage. 
He  was  never  tedious,  but  dropped  out  picture  after  pict- 
ure in  inimitable  finished  sentences.  He  was  so  quiet, 
so  unexaggerative,  so  well-humoured  in  these  private  con- 
versations, that  I  could  scarcely  believe  he  was  the  same 
person  whom  I  used  to  hear  declaim  in  the  Pamphlet 
time.  JS^ow  and  then,  if  he  met  an  acquaintance  who 
might  say  a  foolish  thing,  there  would  come  an  angry 
sputter  or  two  ;  but  he  was  generally  so  patient,  so  for- 
bearing, that  I  thought  age  had  softened  him,  and  I  said 
so  one  day  to  Mrs.  Carlyle.  She  laughed  and  told  him  of 
it.  '  I  wish,'  she  said,  '  Froude  had  seen  you  an  hour  or 
two  after  you  seemed  to  him  so  lamblike.'     But  I  was  re- 


Ca/rlyle'a  MetUal  Refreshment,  %%\ 

lating  what  he  was  as  I  knew  him,  and  as  I  always  found 
him  from  tirst  to  last. 

To  go  on  with  the  story  : — 

Through  the  winter  of  1862-3  Mrs.  Carlyle  seemed 
tolerably  well.  The  weather  was  warm.  She  had  no  seri- 
ous cold.  She  was  very  feeble,  and  lay  chiefly  on  the  sofa, 
but  she  contrived  to  prevent  Carlyle  from  being  anxious 
about  her.  He  worked  without  respite,  rode,  except  on 
walking  days,  chiefly  late  in  the  afternoon,  in  the  dark  in 
the  winter  months,  about  the  environs  of  lx)ndon  ;  and  the 
roaring  of  tlie  suburban  trains  and  the  gleam  of  the  gree^ 
and  crimson  signal  lamps  were  wildly  impressive  to  him. 
On  his  return  he  would  lie  down  in  his  dressing-gown  by 
the  drawing-room  fire,  smoking  up  the  chinmey,  while  she 
would  amuse  him  with  accounts  of  her  daily  visitors.  She 
was  a  pei-fect  artist,  and  could  carve  a  literary  vignette 
out  of  the  commonest  materials.  These  were  his  happiest 
hours,  and  his  only  mental  refreshment.  In  !N^ovember, 
1862,  Lord  Ashburton  fell  ill  at  Paris,  and  there  were 
fears  for  his  life.  '  His  death,'  Carlyle  said,  ^  would  be  a 
heavy  loss  and  sorrow  to  us,  a  black  consummation  of 
what  there  has  already  been.'  But  the  alarm  passed  off 
for  the  time.  *We  are  both  of  us,'  he  reported  at  the 
end  of  December,  *  what  we  call  well ;  indeed,  for  my 
own  part,  I  am  really  in  full  average  case,  as  if  I  had  got 
little  or  no  permanent  damage  from  this  hideous  pfluister 
of  a  book,  which  1  can  hope  is  now  looking  towards  its 
finis.  I  have  done  the  battle  of  Rossbach  (Satan  thank 
it !).  Battle  of  Leuthen,  siege  of  Olmiitz  lie  in  the  rough 
(not  very  bad,  I  hope).  After  that  there  is  only  Uoch- 
kirch.  Rigorous  abridgment  after  that.  One  short  book, 
1  hope,  will  then  end  the  Seven  Years'  "War ;  and  then 
there  is  one  other.  After  that,  home,  like  the  stick  of  a 
rocket.' 

Ajjo  so  far  was  dealing  kindly  with  him.     There  was 


22S  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

no  falling  off  in  bodily  strength.  His  eyes  were  failing 
slightly,  but  they  lasted  out  his  life.  His  right  hand  had 
begun  to  shake  a  little,  and  this  unfortunately  was  to  de- 
velop till  he  was  eventually  disabled  from  writing  ;  but  as 
yet  about  himself  there  was  nothing  to  give  him  serious 
uneasiness.  A  misfortune,  however,  w^as  hanging  over 
him  of  another  kind,  which  threatened  to  upset  the  habits 
of  his  life.  All  his  days  he  had  been  a  fearless  rider.  He 
h^d  a  loose  seat  and  a  careless  hand,  but  he  had  come  to  no 
misfortune,  owing,  he  thought,  to  the  good  sense  of  his 
horse,  which  was  much  superior  to  that  of  most  of  his 
biped  acquaintances.  Fritz,  even  Fritz,*  was  now  to  mis- 
behave. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  February  13,  1863. 
I  have  been  very  unlucky,  or  my  excellent  old  horse  was,  twice 
over  last  week,  Tuesday  and  Friday.  Think  as  you  read.  I  had 
let  the  old  fellow  rest  on  Monday.  Tuesday  I  tumbled  out,  and 
finding  rain,  snatched  my  mackintosh  cloak  and  got  away.  Fritz 
very  lively ;  wind  so  loud  that,  being  then  in  crisis  of  interior,  I 
resolved  to  go  at  walk.  Till  the  Marble  Arch,  Hyde  Park,  we  did 
very  well,  but  the  wdnd  bejng  right  ahead,  and  mackintosh  given 
to  rattle,  the  old  scoundrel  determined  on  a  caper ;  my  hat  blew 
off  me  ;  hands  under  the  mackintosh.  A  labourer  picked  up  the 
hat,  tried  to  wipe  some  of  the  mud  off  it,  Fritz  prancing  all  the 
while.  I  had  no  coppers  in  my  pocket,  drew  out  my  purse  to  give 
sixpence  to  the  man,  crushed  on  the  hat,  and  galloped  home.  At 
night  I  discovered  that  I  had  no  purse.  In  the  tempest  of  rattling 
and  prancing  and  embarrassed  hurrying,  I  had  stuck  it,  not  into 
my  pocket  again,  llut  past  my  pocket,  and  it  was  gone,  twelve  or 
ten  shillings  in  it.  That  was  misadventure  first,  Nichts  zu  he- 
deiden  in  comparison.  Till  Friday  I  daily  rode  the  old  scoundrel. 
On  Friday,  without  the  least  warning  or  cause,  he  came  smash 
down,  lying  flat  on  the  ground  for  one  quarter  of  an  instant,  had 
done  me  no  mischief  at  all,  sprang  up  and  trotted  half  a  mile 
(greatly  ashamed  of  himself,  I  suppose) ;  when  looking  over  his 
shoulder  I  saw  the  blood  streaming  over  his  hoof,  drew  bridle, 
dismounted,  found  the  knees  quite  smashed,  and  except  slowly 
home  have  ridden  no  more  since.   _Jane  will  not  hear  of  my  ever 


Breakdmcn  of  Fritz.  2W 

riding  him  again,  nor  in  real  truth  is  it  proper.  Finis  there- 
fore in  that  depai-tment.  I  have  been  extremely  sorry  for  my 
poor  old  fourfooted  friend.  Gam  treu  he  constantly  and  won- 
derfully was  ;  and  now,  what  to  do  with  myself !  or  how  to  dis- 
pose of  poor  Fritz.  Of  course  I  can  sell  him  ;  have  him  knocked 
down  at  Tattersall's  for  a  10/.  or  an  old  song ;  and  then  (as  he 
goes  delirious  imder  violent  usage  and  is  frightened  for  running 
swift  in  harness)  get  the  poor  creature  scourged  to  death  in  a 
honible  way,  after  all  •  the  20,000  faithful  miles  he  has  carried 
me,  and  the  wild  j^uddles  and  lonely  dark  times  we  have  had 
together.  I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  that.  He  is  a  strong  healthy 
horse,  loyal  and  peaceable  and  wise  as  horse  ever  was. 

Fritz  was  sold  for  nine  pounds.  What  became  of  him 
further  I  never  heard.  Lady  Asliburton  supplied  his 
place  with  another,  equally  good  and  almost  with  Fritz's 
intellect.  Life  went  on  as  before  after  this  interruption, 
and  leaves  little  to  record.     On  April  29  he  writes : — 

I  had  to  go  yesterday  to  Dickens's  Reading,  8  p.m.,  Hanover 
Rooms,  to  the  complete  upsetting  of  my  evening  habitudes  and 
spiritual  composure.  Dickens  does  do  it  capitally,  such  as  it  is ; 
acts  better  than  any  Macready  in  the  world ;  a  whole  tragic, 
comic,  heroic  theatre  visible,  iperforming  under  one  hat,  and  keep- 
ing us  laughing — in  a  sorry  way,  some  of  us  thought— the  whole 
night.  He  is  a  good  creature,  too,  and  makes  fifty  or  sixty  pounds 
by  each  of  these  readings.' 

From  dinner  parties  he  had  almost  wholly  withdrawn, 
but  in  the  same  letter  he  mentions  one  to  which  he  had 
been  tempted  by  a  new  acquaintance,  who  grew  after- 
wards into  a  dear  and  justly  valued  friend,  Miss  Daven- 
port Bromley,  lie  admired  Miss  Bromley  from  the  first, 
for  her  light,  aiiy  ways,  and  compared  her  to  a  '  flight  of 
larks.' 

Summer  came,  and  hot  weather ;  he  descended  from  his 
garret  to  the  awning  in  the  garden  again.  By  August  he 
was  tired,  '  Frederick '  spinning  out  beyond  expectation, 
and  he  and  Mrs.  Carlyle  went  for  a  fortnight  to  the 
Grange.     Lord  Ashburtou  seemed  to  have  recovered,  but 


230  Oarlj/ys  Life  in  London. 

was  very  delicate.  There  was  do  party,  only  Yenables, 
the  guest  of  all  others  whom  Carlyle  best  liked  to  meet. 
The  visit  was  a  happy  one,  a  gleam  of  pure  sunshine  be- 
fore the  terrible  calamity  which  was  now  impending. 

One  evening,  after  their  return,  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  gone 
to  call  on  a  cousin  at  the  post  office  in  St.  Martin's  Lane. 
She  had  come  away,  and  was  trying  to  reach  an  omnibus, 
when  she  was  thrown  by  a  cab  on  the  kerbstone.  Her 
right  arm  being  disabled  by  neuralgia,  she  was  unable  to 
break  her  fall.  The  sinews  of  one  thigh  were  sprained 
and  lacerated,  and  she  was  brought  home  in  a  fly  in  dread- 
ful pain.  She  knew  that  Carlyle  would  be  expecting  her. 
Her  chief  anxiety,  she  told  me,  was  to  get  into  the  house 
Avithout  his  knowledge,  to  spare  him  agitation.  For  her- 
self, she  could  not  move.  She  stopped  at  the  door  of  Mr. 
Larkin,  who  lived  in  the  adjoining  house  in  Chejaie  Row, 
and  asked  him  to  help  her.  The  sound  of  the  wheels  and 
the  noise  of  voices  reached  Carlyle  in  the  drawing-room. 
He  rushed  down,  and  he  and  Mr.  Larkin  together  bore 
her  up  the  stairs,  and  laid  her  on  her  bed.  There  she  re- 
mained, in  an  agony  which,  experienced  in  pain  as  she 
was,  exceeded  the  worst  that  she  had  known.  Carlyle  was 
not  allowed  to  know  how  seriously  she  had  been  injured. 
The  doctor  and  she  both  agreed  to  conceal  it  from  him, 
and  during  those  first  days  a  small  incident  happened, 
which  she  herself  described  to  me,  showing  the  distracting 
want  of  perception  which  sometimes  characterized  him — 
a  want  of  perception,  not  a  want  of*  feeling,  for  no  one 
could  have  felt  more  tenderl3^  The  nerves  and  muscles 
were  completely  disabled  on  the  side  on  which  she  had 
fallen,  and  one  effect  was  that  the  under  jaw  had  dropped, 
and  that  she  could  not  close  it.  Carlyle  always  disliked  an 
open  mouth  ;  he  thought  it  a  sign  of  foolishness.  One 
morning,  when  the  pain  was  at  its  worst,  he  came  into  her 
rooni,  and  stood  looking  at  her,  leaning  on  the  mantel- 


Accidetit  to  Mrs.  Carlyle.  231' 

pisoe.  *  Jane,'  he  said  pi-esently,  *  ye  liad  better  shut  your 
mouth.'  She  tried  to  tell  him  that  she  could  not.  *  Jane/ 
lie  began  again,  *ye'll  Und  yourself  in  a  more  compact  and 
pious  frame  of  mind,  if  ye  shut  your  mouth.'  In  old- 
fashioned  and,  in  him,  perfectly  sincere  piiraseology  he 
told  her  that  she  ought  to  be  thankful  that  the  accident 
was  no  worse.  Mrs.  Carlyle  hated  cant  as  heartily  as  he, 
and  to  her,  in  her  sore  state  of  mind  and  body,  such  words 
liad  a  tlavour  of  cant  in  them.  True  lierself.  as  steel,  she 
would  not  bear  it.  *  Thankful  ! '  she  said  to  him  ;  '  thank- 
ful for  what  ?  for  having  been  thrown  down  in  the  street 
when  I  had  gone  on  an  errand  of  charity  ?  for  being  dis- 
abled, crushed,  made  to  suffer  in  this  way  ?  I  am  not 
thankful,  and  I  will  not  say  that  I  am.'  He  left  her,  say- 
ing he  was  sorry  to  see  her  so  rebellious.  We  can  hardly 
wonder  after  this  that  he  had  to  report  sadly  to  his  brother: 
*  She  speaks  little  to  me,  and  does  not  accept  me  as  a  sick 
nurse,  which,  truly,  1  had  never  any  talent  to  be.' 

Of  course  he  did  not  know  at  first  her  real  condition. 
She  had  such  indomitable  courage  that  she  persuaded  him 
that  she  was  actually  better  off  since  she  had  become  help- 
less than  '  when  she  had  been  struggling  to  go  out  daily 
and  returned  done  up,  with  her  joints  like  to  fall  in 
pieces.'  For  a  month  she  could  not  move — at  the  end  of 
it  she  was  able  to  struggle  to  her  feet  and  crawl  occasion- 
ally into  the  adjoining  room.  Carlyle  was  blind.  Seven 
weeks  after  the  accident  he  could  write :  *  She  actually 
sleeps  better,  eats  better,  and  is  cheerfuller  than  formerly. 
For  perhaps  three  weeks  past  she  has  been  hitching  about 
with  a  stick.  She  can  walk  too,  bnt  slowly  without  stick. 
In  short  she  is  doing  well  enough — as  indeed  am  I,  and 
have  need  to  be.' 

lie  had  need  to  be,  for  he  had  just  discovered  that  lie 
could  not  end  with  *  Frederick  '  like  a  rocket-stick,  but 
that  there  must  be  a  new  vi^lumej  and  fur  his  sake,  and 


232  Cariyle's  Life  in  London, 

knowing  how  the  trutli,  if  he  was  aware  o£  it,  would  agi- 
tate him,  with  splendid  heroism  she  had  forced,  herself 
prematurely  to  her  feet  again,  the  mental  resolution  con- 
quering the  weakness  of  the  body.  She  even  received 
visitors  again,  and  in  the  middle  of  IN'ovember,  I  and  my 
own  wife  once  more  spent  an  evening  there/  But  it  was 
the  last  exertion  which  she  was  able  to  make.  The  same 
night  there  came  on  neuralgic  pain — rather  torture  than 
pain — of  which  the  doctor  could  give  no  explanation.  '  A 
mere  cold,'  he  said,  '  no  cause  for  alarm  ; '  but  the  weeks 
went  on  and  there  was  no  abatement,  still  pain  in  every 
muscle,  misery  in  every  nerve,  no  sleep,  no  rest  from  suf- 
fering night  or  day — save  in  faint  misleading  intervals — 
and  Carlyle  knew  at  last  how  it  was  with  her,  and  had  to 
go  on  with  his  work  as  he  could. 

*"We  are  in  great  trouble,'  he  wrote  on  the  29th  of  December, 
in  one  of  those  intervals,  *  trouble,  anxiety,  and  confusion.  Poor 
Jane's  state  is  such  as  to  jfill  us  with  the  saddest  thoughts.  She 
does  not  gather  strength — how  can  she  !  She  is  quieter  in  regard 
to  pain.  The  neuralgia  and  other  torments  have  sensibly  abated, 
not  ceased.  She  also  eats  daily  a  little— that  is  one  clearly  good 
symptom.  But  her  state  is  one  of  weakness,  utter  restlessness, 
depression,  and  misery,  such  a  scene  as  I  never  was  in  before.  If 
she  could  only  get  a  little  sleep,  but  she  cannot  hitherto.  To- 
night, by  Barnes's  advice  and  her  own  reluctant  consent,  she  is  to 
try  morphine  again.  God  of  His  mercy  grant  that  it  may  prosper ! 
There  has  been  for  ten  days  a  complete  cessation  of  all  druggings 
and  opiate  abominations.  They  did  her  a  great  deal  of  mischief 
instead  of  any  good.  ...  I  still  tiy  to  hope  and  believe  that 
my  poor  little  woman  is  a  little  thought  better,  but  it  is  miserable 
to  see  how  low  and  wretched  she  is,  and  under  what  wearing  pain 
slic  passes  her  sleepless  nights  and  days.  In  health  I  am  myself 
as  well  as  usual,  which  surely  is  a  blessing.  I  keep  busy  too  in 
all  available  moments.     Work  done  is  the  one  consolation  left  me.* 

Other  remedies  failing,  the  last  chance  was  in  change 
and  sea  air.     Dr.  Blakeston,  an  accomplished  physician  at 

1  Letters  and  Memorials^  vol.  ii.  p.  272. 


Alone  in  Cheyne  Row.  Hf^ 

St.  Leonards,  whose  wife  was  an  old  friend  of  Mrs.  Car* 
lyle,  offered  to  receive  her  as  a  guest.  She  was  taken 
thither  in  a  *  sick  carriage,'  in  constmction  and  appearance 
something  like  a  hearse,  in  the  beginning  of  March.  Car- 
]y\e  attended  her  down,  left  her,  with  her  cousin  ^faL'^gie 
Welsh,  in  the  Blakestons'  affectionate  hands,  and  himself 
i-eturned  to  his  solitary  home  and  task.  There,  in  Hades 
as  he  called  it,  he  sate  toiling  on,  watching  for  the  daily 
bulletins,  now  worse,  now  a  little  better,  his  own  letters' 
fidl  of  passionate  grief  and  impatience  with  intruders,  who 
came  with  the  kindest  purpose  to  enquire,  but- just  then 
could  better  have  been  spared. 

'  I  was  left  well  alone  last  night,*  he  wrote  on  the  15th  of  March, 

*  and  sate  at  least  silent  in  my  gloom.  On  Sunday  came  G.  to  en- 
quire for  Mrs.  C.  His  enquiry  an  offence  to  me.  I  instantly 
walked  him  out,  but  had  to  go  talking  with  him,  mere^re  and 
brimstone  upon  suet  dumpling,  progress  of  the  species,  &c.  «tc.,  all 
the  way  to  Hyde  Park.  "What  does  the  foolish  ball  of  tallow  want 
with  me?* 

Sorrows  did  not  come  single.  Ten  days  later  came  news 
that  Lord  Ashburton  was  dead,  the  dearest  friend  that 
had  been  left  to  him.  As  an  evidence  of  regard  Lord  A. 
had  left  him  2,000^.,  or  rather  had  not  left  it,  but  liad  de- 
sired that  it  should  be  given  to  him,  that  there  might  be 
no  deduction  for  legacy  duty.  It  was  a  small  matter  at 
snch  a  moment  that  there  appeared  in  the  '  Saturday  Ee- 
view'^an  extremely  contemptible  notice,  hostile  if  the 
dirty  puppy   dared,'  on   the  last  published  volumes  of 

*  Frederick.'  This  did  not  even  vex  him,  *  was  not  worth 
a  snuff  of  tobacco ; '  only  lie  thought  it  was  a  pity  that 
Yenables  just  then  should  have  allowed  the  book  to  fall 
into  unworthy  hands.  He  wrote  to  his  wife  daily — a  few 
words  to  satisfy  lier  that  he  was  well.  At  length  the  ab- 
sence from  her  became  unbearable.  He  took  a  house  at 
St.  T/eonards,  to  which  she  could  be  removed ;  and,  leav- 
ing Cheyne  Row  to  tlie  care  of  Mr.  Larkin,  he  went  down, 


234  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London.  _ 

with  his  work,  to  join  her.  Most  things  in  this  world 
have  their  sunny  side — the  planet  itself  first,  and  then  the 
fortunes  of  its  occupants.  His  grief  and  anxiety  had  con- 
vinced Mrs.  Carlyle  of  her  husband's  real  love  for  her, 
which  she  had  long  doubted.  But  that  was  all,  for  her 
sufferings  were  of  a  kind  which  few  human  frames  could 
bear  without  sinking  under  them.  Carlyle  was  patient 
and  tender ;  all  was  done  for  her  which  care  and  love 
could  provide ;  she  had  not  wholly  lost  her  strength  or 
energy ;  but  the  pain  and  sleeplessness  continued  week  after 
week  without  sign  of  abating.  They  remained  at  St. 
Leonards  till  the  middle  of  July,  when  desperate,  after 
twelve  nights  absolutely  without  sleep  of  any  kind,  she 
rallied  her  force,  rose,  and  went  off,  under  John  Carlyle's 
charge,  through  London  to  Annandale,  there  to  shake  ofF 
the  horrible  enchantment  or  else  to  die. 

It  was  on  the  eve  of  her  birthday  that  she  made  her 
flight.  ]N'o  one  was  more  absolutely  free  than  she  was 
from  superstition,  but  times  and  seasons  were  associated 
with  human  feelings ;  she  might  either  end  her  life  alto- 
gether or  receive  a  fresh  lease  of  it.  Carlyle  remained  at 
St.  Leonards,  to  gather  his  books  and  papers  together. 
She  was  to  go  first  to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Austin,  at  the  Gill. 
'  Oh  what  a  birthday  is  this  for  thee  ! '  he  cried  after  her, 
*  flying  from  the  tormentor,  panting  like  the  hunted  doe 
with  all  the  hounds  of  the  pit  in  chase.  Poor  Mary  will 
do  her  very  best  and  sisterliest  for  you ;  a  kinder  soul  is 
not  on  earth.'  The  violent  revulsion,  strange  to  say,  for  a 
time  succeeded.  The  journey  did  not  hurt  her.  She  re- 
covered sleep  a  little,  strength  a  little.  Slowly,  very 
slowly  and  with  many  relapses,  she  rallied  into  a  more 
natural  state,  first  at  the  Gill  and  afterwards  with  the 
Russells  in  Nithsdale.*     Carlyle  could  not  follow  except 

>  For  the  Russells  and  all  they  did  for  Mrs.  Carlyle,  see  Letters  and  Memo- 
rials^ vol.  ii.  p.  300  et  seq. 


Alone  in  C^imfms  JSow.  235 

with  his  heart)  but  the  thoughts  which  he  could  spare  from 
his  work  were  given  to  what  he  would  do  for  her  if  she 
was  ever  restored  to  him  alive. 

There  was  to  be  no  more  hiring  of  carriages,  no  more 
omnibuses.  She  was  henceforth  to  have  a  brougham  of 
her  own.  Her  room  in  Cheyne  llow  in  which  she  had  k> 
siifFei-ed,  was  re-papered,  re-arranged,  with  the  kind  help 
of  Miss  Bromley,  that  she  might  be  snrronnded  with  ob- 
jects unassociated  with  the  past. 

Hei*e  are  a  series  of  extracts  from  the  letters  which  he 
wrote  to  her :  — 

Chel«ea :  July  29,  1861 
People  do  not  help  me  much.  Oh  darling,  when  will  you  come 
back  and  protect  me  ?  God  above  will  have  an*auged  that  for  both 
of  us,  and  it  will  be  His  will  not  ours  that  can  rule  it.  My  thoughts 
are  a  prayer  for  my  poor  little  life*partner  who  has  fallen  lame  be- 
side me  after  travelling  so  many  steep  and  thorny  ways.  I  will 
stop  this,  lest  I  fall  to  crying  altogether. 

Angnst  1. 
Worked  too  late  yesterday.  Walked  out  for  exercise  at  7  p.m. 
Wild,  windy  sky.  Streets — thank  God  ! — nearly  empty  ;  rain 
threatening.  My  walk  was  gloomy,  S(ui  as  death,  but  not  provok- 
ing, not  so  miserable  as  many.  Gloom,  sorrow;  but  instead  of 
rage — suppressed  rage  as  too  often — pious  grief,  heavy  but  blessed 
rather.  I  read  till  midnight,  then  out  again,  Kolitary  as  a  ghost, 
and  to  bed  About  one.     I  see  nobody,  wish  to  see  nobody. 

Aagutta 
I  am  out  of  sorts ;  no  work  hardly ;  and  nrn  about  as  mwerahlft 
as  my  worst  enemy  could  wish ;  and  my  poor  little  friend  of  friends, 
she  has  {alien  wounded  to  the  ground  and  I  am  alone — alone !  My 
spirits  are  quite  sunk  ;  my  hand  is  quite  out.  Postman  Bullock 
wants  me  to  get  his  son  promoted.  Can't  I?  Somebody  else  wants 
601.  till  he  prove  the  Bible  out  of  square.  Another  requeste  me  to 
induct  him  into  literature.  Another  to  say  how  he  can  save  man- 
kind, which  is  much  his  wish,  &o. 

Angnst  3. 

Tour  poor  nervous  system  ruined,  not  by  thoee  late  months  only, 
but  by  long  yews  of  more  or  less  the  like !  Oh,  you  have  had  a 
hard  life !    I,  too,  not  a  soft  one :  but  yours  beside  me  1    Aias  L 


236  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

alas !  I  am  better  than  yesterday,  still  not  quite  up  to  par.  The 
noises  have  considerably  increased  about  me,  but  I  care  much  less 
about  them  in  general.  Night  always  brings  her  coolness,  her 
silence,  which  is  an  infinite  solace  to  us,  body  and  soul.  Nothing 
of  blockhead  mankind's  procedure  seems  madder  and  even  more 
condemnable  to  me  than  this  of  their  brutish  bedlamitish  creation 
of  needless  noises. 

August  4. 
What  a  blessed  coui-se  of  religious  industry  is  that  of  Scotland, 
to  guard  against  letters  coming  or  going  so  many  days  every 
month.  The  seventh  day,  fourth  part  of  a  lunation  ;  that  is  the 
real  fact  it  all  rests  on  ;  and  such  a  hubbub  made  of  it  by  the  vile, 
flunkey  souls  who  call  themselves  special  worshippers  of  the  Most 
High.  Mumbo  Jumbo  on  the  coast  of  Guinea  almost  seems  a 
shade  more  respectable. 


I  was  absent  from  London  during  the  summer.  I  had 
heard  that  the  Carljles  had  left  St.  Leonards  and  that  she 
was  in  Scotland,  and  I  wrote  to  him  under  the  impression 
that  she  must  be  recovering.  He  answered  that  I  had 
been  ycjy  too  hopeful. 

Chelsea :  August  6. 
The  accounts  have  mostly  been  bad ;  but  for  two  days  past  seem 
(to  myself)  to  indicate  something  of  real  improvement.  I  am 
always  very  sanguine  in  the  matter ;  but  get  the  saddest  rebukes, 
as  you  see.  God  only  knows  what  is  to  become  of  it  all.  But  I 
keep  as  busy  as  the  Fates  will  allow,  and  in  that  find  the  summary 
of  any  consolation  that  remains  to  me.  My  progress  is,  as  it  has 
always  been,  frightfully  slow ;  but,  if  I  live  a  few  months,  I  always 
think  I  shall  get  the  accursed  millstone  honourably  sawed  from 
my  neck,  and  once  more  revisit  the  daylight  and  the  diy  land,  and 
see  better  what  steps  are  to  be  taken.  I  have  no  company  here 
but  my  horse.  Indeed  I  have  mainly  consorted  with  my  horse  for 
eight  years  back — and  he,  the  staff  of  my  life  otherwise,  is  better 
company  than  any  I  could  get  at  present  in  these  latitudes — an 
honest  creature  that  is  always  candid  with  me  and  rationally  use- 
ful in  a  small  way,  which  so  few  are.  Wish  me  well  and  return, 
the  sooner  the  better.  How  well  I  remember  the  last  night  you 
and  Mrs.  Froude  were  here !  It  wa«  the  last  sight  I  had  of  my 
poor  little  life-companion  still  afoot  by  my  side,  cheerily  footing 


Alone  in  Clieyiie  Row,  237 

the  rough  ways  along  with  me,  not  ovem^Iielmcd  in  wild  deluges 
of  miseiy  as  now.  At  spes  in/racta!  This  is  the  Place  of  Hope.— r 
Yours  ever,  T.  C. 

To  lier  his  letters  continued  constant,  his  spirits  varying 
with  her  accounts  of  herself,  but,  as  he  had  said  to  nie, 
always  tiTing  to  be  sanguine. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carfyie, 

Chelsea :  Aagnat  11. 

Oh,  what  a  deliverance  to  the  loaded  heart  of  me — one  ought 
not  to  be  so  desperate,  but  I  was  too  early  awake  again,  and  flesh  is 
weak.  Oh,  I  am  so  sad,  sad,  sad,  but  have  often  been  more  misera- 
ble far.  The  sorrow  h&s  forgiveness  in  it,  reconciliation  to  all  men 
and  things,  especially  to  all  men,  not  secret  rage  and  vain  struggle, 
as  too  often.  Oh,  do  but  get  better,  my  own  Schatz.  We  shall 
have  good  days  yet,  please  God. 

AaguBt  18. 

May  I  really  think  the  vengeful  Furies  are  abating,  going  grad- 
ually to  their  homes — and  that  my  poor  little  Eurydice  will  come 
back  again  and  make  me  rich.  God  of  His  mercy  gi-ant  it  to  me 
and  you.  Amen  !  What  a  humihated,  broken-down,  poor  cheepy 
wretch  I  am  !  Condemned  to  dwell  among  the  pots  and  live  upon 
unclean  blockheadism,  and  hug  foul  creatures  to  my  bosom,  coax- 
ing them  to  tell  me  what  they  know,  tliese  long  years  past,  till  I 
feel  viyself  to  have  become  foul  and  blockheadish.  On,  on,  to  get 
it  pitched  away  from  me  into  the  bottomless  Pool  I 

August  35. 

Tlie  girls  are  raging  and  scrubbing ;  the  curtains  all  on  the 
ropes  in  the  garden.  Cat,  with  miniature  black  likeness  of  hei-self, 
contemplatively  \»*andering  among  the  skirts  of  them.  Not  a 
mouse  stirring !  Oh  dear !  I  i^ish  my  Goody  was  back,  but  I 
won't  be  impatient.  Oh,  no,  no  ;  as  long  as  I  hear  of  her  getting 
inch  by  inch  into  her  old  self  again.  The  heavens  truly  are  mer- 
ciful and  gracious  to  me,  though  they  load  my  back  rather  sore. 

August  a9-4X). 

The  blessed  silence  of  Sabbath.  Nobody  loves  his  Sabbath  as  I 
do.  Tliore  is  something  quite  divine  to  me  in  that  cessation  of 
barrel  organs,  pianos,  tumults,  and  jumblings.  I  easily  do  a  better 
day's  work  than  on  any  other  day  of  the  seven  ;  and,  if  left  alone, 
have  a  aoleum  kind  of  saduesSi^  a  gloom  of  mind  which,  though 


238  Cm'lyle's  Life  in  London, 

heavy  to  bear,  is  not  unallied  with  sacredness  and  blessedness. 
.  .  .  Poor  little  soul!  You  are  the  helm,  intellect  of  the 
house.  Nobody  else  has  the  least  skill  in  steering.  My  poor 
scissors,  for  example,  you  would  find  them  in  perhaps  five  min- 
utes. Nobody  else  I  think  will  in  five  months.  '  Nowhere  to  be 
found,  sir.'  '  Can't  find  them,'  say  they,  as  so  many  rabbits  or 
blue-bottle  flies  might. 

August  31.* 
It  is  the  waest  and  forlornest-looking  thing,  like  to  make  me 
cry  outright.  Indeed,  I  often  feel,  if  I  could  sit  down  and  greet 
for  a  whole  day  it  would  be  an  infinite  relief  to  me,  but  one's 
eyes  grow  dry.  What  a  quantity  of  greeting,  too,  one  used  to  do 
in  the  beginning  of  life.  ...  I  am  but  low-spirited,  you  see. 
Want  of  potatoes,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  is  the  source  of  everything, 
and  I  will  give  up. 

September  8-9. 

Oh,  how  I  wish  I  had  you  here  again,  ill  or  not  ill.  We  will  try 
to  bear  the  yoke  together,  and  the  sight  of  your  face  will  do  my 
sick  heart  good.  .  .  .  Your  account  would  have  made  me 
quite  glad  again,  had  not  my  spirits  been  otherwise  below  par. 
Want  of  potatoes,  want  of  regular  bodily  health,  nay — it  must  be 
admitted — I  am  myself  too  irregular  with  no  Goody  near  me.  If 
I  were  but  regular !  There  will  be  nothing  for  it  but  that  you 
come  home  and  regulate. 

September  20. 
You  are  evidently  suffering  much.  I  cannot  help  you  at  all.  The 
only  thing  I  can  do  is  to  wish  for  you  here  again,  such  as  you  are ; 
quiet  at  your  own  chimney-nook  where  it  would  be  new  life  to  me 
to  see  you  sitting,  never  so  lame  if  not  quite  too  miserable  and  not 
in  pain  ^mendurable.  Endurable  or  not,  we  two,  and  not  any 
other  body,  are  the  natural  bearers  of  it.  .  .  .  Of  myself  there 
is  nothing  to  record,  but  a  gallop  of  excellence  yesterday,  an  even- 
ing to  myself  altogether,  almost  incapable,  not  quite,  and  a  walk 
under  the  shining  skies  between  twelve  and  one  a.m.  The  weather 
is  as  beautiful  as  it  can  be.  Silent  strangely  when  the  infernal 
cockneyisms  sink  away — so  silent,  brilliant,  sad,  that  I  was  like 
to  greet  looking  at  it. 

1  Deacribingthe  re-{yrfftngement  of  her  bedroom. 


Mrs.  CarhjWs  liecuvcf^.  239 

September  lii. 
I  had  the  pain  of  erduding  poor  Fane  last  night.  I  knew  his  rap 
and  indeed  was  peremptory  before  that.  *  Nobody  I'  But  Fane 
really  wishes  well  to  both  of  us.  In  my  loneliness  here  it  often 
seems  to  me  as  if  there  was  nothing  but  nasty  organ-grinding, 
misguided,  hostile,  savage,  or  indifferent  people  round  me  from 
shore  to  shore ;  and  Farie's  withdrawing  footstep  had  a  kind  of 
sadness. 

September  27. 
It  is  no  wonder,  as  Jean  says,  that  you  are  '  blackbased '  *  at  such 
a  journey  lying  ahead,  but  the  real  likelihood  is  it  will  pass  with- 
out essential  damage  to  you.  You  will  get  to  me  on  Saturday 
morning,  and  find  me  at  least,  and  what  home  we  have  on  this 
vexed  earth,  true  to  one  another  while  we  stay  here.  The  house 
is  quite  ready.  I  shall  not  be  long  with  my  book  now.  .  .  . 
On  Sunday  in  Belgrave  Square  I  met  the  Dean  of  Westminster ; 
innocent  heterodox  soul,  blase  on  toast  and  water,  coming  on  with 
his  neat  black-eyed  little  Scotch  wife.  Oh,  what  inquiries  !  Really 
very  innocent  people,  and  really  interested  in  you. 

September  29. 
Oh,  my  suffering  little  Jeannie  !  Not  a  wink  of  real  sleep  again 
for  you.  I  read  (your  letter)  with  that  kind  of  heart  you  may  sup- 
pose in  the  bright  beautiful  morning ;  even  Margaretta  Terrace 
looking  wholesome  and  kind,  while  for  poor  us  there  is  nothing 
but  restless  pain  and  chagrin.  And  yet,  deai*est,  there  is  some- 
thing in  your  note  *  which  is  welcomer  to  me  than  anything  I  have 
yet  had — a  sound  ol  piety ^  of  devout  humiliation  and  gentle  hope 
and  submission  to  the  Highest,  which  affects  me  much  and  has 
been  a  great  comfort  for  me.  Yes,  poor  darling !  This  was  wanted. 
Proud  stoicism  you  never  failed  in,  nor  do  I  want  you  to  abate  of 
it.  But  there  is  something  beyond  of  which  I  believe  you  to  have 
had  too  little.  It  softens  the  angry  heart  and  is  far  from  weaken- 
ing it — nay,  is  the  final  strength  of  it,  the  fountain  and  nourish- 
ment of  all  real  strength.  Come  home  to  your  own  ix>or  nest 
.ii?ain.  That  is  a  good  change,  and  clearly  the  best  of  all.  Gird 
your  soul  heroically  together,  and  let  me  see  you  on  Saturday  by 
my  side  again,  for  weal  or  woe.  We  have  had  a  great  deal  of  hard 
travelling  together,  we  will  not  break  down  yet,  please  God.   How 

»  Abased.— It  was  a  phrase  of  my  mother'*.— T.  C 
« iMttn  atud  MnmridU^  vol.  ii.  |>.  S(U    -  •      « 


240  Carlylis  Life  in  London. 

to  thank  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Eussell  for  what  they  have  done  for  you, 
much  more  how  to  repay  them,  beats  all  my  ingenuity. 

And  so  Mrs.  Carlyle  came  back  to  Cbeyne  Row,  from 
which  she  had  been  carried  six  months  before  as  in  a 
hearse,  expecting  to  see  it  no  more.  She  reappeared  in 
her  old  circle,  Aveak,  shattered,  her  body  worn  to  a  shadow, 
but  witli  her  spirit  bright  as  ever — brighter  perhaps ;  •  for 
Carlyle's  tenderness  in  her  illness  Iiad  convinced  her  that 
lie  really  cared  for  her,  and  the  sunset  of  her  married  life 
recovered  something  of  the  colours  of  its  morning.  He, 
too  sanguine  always,  persuaded  himself  that  her  disorder 
was  now  worn  out,  and  that  she  was  on  the  way  to  a  per- 
fect restoration.  She,  I  think,  was  under  no  such  illusion. 
There  was  a  gentle  smile  in  her  face,  if  one  ever  spoke  of 
it,  which  showed  her  incredulity.  But  from  London  she 
took  no  hurt.  She  seemed  rather  to  gain  strength  than  to 
lose  it.  To  her  friends  she  was  as  risen  from  the  dead, 
and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  her  to  see  how  dear  she  was  to 
them  and  with  what  eagerness  they  pressed  forward  to  be 
of  use.  No  one  could  care  a  little  for  Mrs.  Carlyle,  and 
the  singular  nature  of  her  illness  added  to  the  interest 
which  was  felt  for  her.  She  required  new  milk  in  the 
moi-ning.  A  supply  was  sent  in  daily,  fresh  from  the 
Rector's  cow.  The  brougham  was  bought,  and  she  had  a 
childlike  pride  in  it,  as  her  husband's  present.  '  Strange 
and  precious  to  look  back  upon,'  he  says,  *  those  last  eigh- 
teen months  as  of  a  second  youth — almost  a  second  child- 
hood, with  the  wisdom  and  graces  of  old  age,  w^hich  by 
Heaven's  great  mercy  were  conceded  to  her  and  me.' 

*  Frederick '  was  finished  in  Januarj^,  the  last  of  Car- 
lyle's great  works,  the  last  and  grandest  of  them.  '  The 
dreary  task,  and  the  sorrows  and  obstructions  attending  it,' 
'a  magazine  of  despairs,  impossibilities,  and  ghastly  diffi- 
culties never  known  but  to  himself,  and  by  himself  never 
to  be  forgotten,'  all  was  over,  '  locked  away  and  the  key 


''Frederick'  Finished.  241 

turned  on  it'  *  It  nearly  killed  nie '  [he  says  in  his  jour- 
nal], *  it,  and  my  poor  Jane's  dreadful  illness,  now  happily 
over.  Ko  sympathy  could  be  found  on  earth  for  those 
horrid  struggles  of  twelve  years,  nor  happily  was  any 
needed.  On  Sunday  evening  in  the  end  of  January  (18C5) 
I  walked  out,  with  the  multiplex  feeling — joy  not  ver\ 
prominent  in  it,  hut  a  kind  of  solemn  thankfulness  trace- 
able, that  1  had  written  the  last  sentence  of  that  unutterable 
book,  and,  contrary  to  many  forebodings  in  bad  hours,  had 
actually  got  done  with  it  for  ever.' 

*  Frederick '  was  translated  instantly  into  German,  and 
in  Germany,  where  the  conditions  were  better  known  in 
which  Carlyle  had  found  his  materials,  there  was  the 
warmest  appreciation  of  what  he  had  done.  The  sharpest 
scrutiny  only  served  to  show  how  accurate  was  the  work- 
manship. Few  people  anywhere  in  Europe  dreamt  twenty 
years  ago  of  the  position  which  Germany,  and  Prussia  at 
the  head  of  it,  were  so  soon  to  occupy.  Yet  Carlyle's  book 
seemed  to  have  been  composed  in  conscious  anticipation  of 
what  was  coming.  He  had  given  a  voice  to  the  national 
feeling.  He  had  brought  up  as  it  were  from  the  dead  the 
creator  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  and  had  replaced  him 
among  his  people  as  a  living  and  breathing  man.  He  had 
cleared  the  air  for  the  impending  revolution,  and  Europe, 
when  it  came,  could  see  how  the  seed  had  grown  which 
had  expanded  into  the  German  Empire. 

In  p]ngland  it  was  at  once  admitted  that  a  splendid  addi- 
tion had  been  made  to  the  national  literature.  The  book 
contained,  if  nothing  else,  a  gallery  of  historical  figures 
executed  with  a  skill  which  placed  Carlyle  at  the  head  of 
literary  portrait  painters.  The  English  mind  remains  in- 
sular and  is  hard  to  interest  supremely  in  any  history  but 
its  own.  The  tone  of  *  Frederick '  nowhere  harmonized 
with  popular  sentiment  among  ns,  and  every  page  con- 
tained something  to  offend.  Yet  even  in  England  it  waa 
Vol.  IV.-16 


242  •  Cadyle's  Life  in  London. 

better  received  on  its  first  appearance  than  any  of  Carlyle's 
other  works  had  been,  and  it  gave  solidity  and  massiveness 
to  his  ah'eady  brilliant  fame.  No  critic,  after  the  com- 
pletion of  '  Frederick,'  challenged  Carlyle's  right  to  a  place 
beside  the  greatest  of  English  authors,  past  or  present. 

He  had  sorely  tried  America ;  but  America  forgave  his 
sarcasms — forgot  the  '  smoky  chimney,'  foi-got  the  '  Iliad 
in  a  l^ntshell,'  and  was  cordially  and  enthusiastically 
admiring.  Emerson  sent  out  a  paragraph,* which  went 
the  round  of  the  Union,  that  '  "  Frederick  "  was  the  wit- 
tiest book  that  was  ever  written  ;  a  book  that  one  would 
think  the  English  people  would  rise  up  in  mass  and 
thank  the  author  for  by  cordial  acclamation,  and  signify, 
by  crowming  him  with  oak  leaves,  their  joy  that  sucli  a 
head  existed  among  them  ; '  '  while  sympathising  and 
much-reading  America  would  make  a  new  treatj^,  or  send 
a  Minister  Extraordinary  to  offer  congratulations  of  hon- 
ouring delight  to  England  in  acknowledgment  of  this 
donation.'  A  rather  sanguine  expectation  on  Emerson's 
part !  England  has  ceased  to  stone  or  burn  her  prophets, 
but  she  does  not  yet  make  them  the  subject  of  inter- 
national treaties.  She  crowns  with  oak  leaves  her  actors 
and  her  prima-donnas,  her  politicians,  who  are  to-day  her 
idols,  and  to-morrow  will  find  none  so  poor  to  do  them 
reverence ;  to  wise  men  she  is  contented  to  pay  more 
moderate  homage,  and  leaves  the  final  decorating  work  to 
time  and  future  generations. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

A.D.  1865-6.     ^T.  70-71. 

*  Frederick'  completed — Summer  in  Annandale — Mrs.  Carlyle  ic 
Nithsdale — Visit  to  Linlathen — Thomas  Erskine — The  Edin- 
burgh Rectorship — Feelings  in  Cheyne  Row  about  it— Ras- 
kin's *  Ethics  of  the  Dust.* 

The  last  proofs  of  *  Frederick '  being  corrected  and  dis- 
inissed,  the  Carlyles  went  down,  in  the  spring  of  1865,  to 
stay  with  Lady  Asliburton  at  a  seaside  cottage  at  Seaton,  in 
Devonsliire.  They  spent  a  few  quiet  weeks  tliere,  and 
tlien  went  liome  again — Carlyle,  so  he  says,  to  *8ink  and 
sink  into  ever  new  depths  of  stupefaction  and  dark  misery 
of  body  and  mind.'  lie  was  a  restless  spirit.  When 
busy,  he  complained  that  his  work  was  killing  him  ;  when 
he  was  idle,  his  mind  preyed  upon  itself.  Perhaps,  as  was 
generally  the  case,  he  exaggerated  his  own  discomforts. 
Long  before  he  had  told  his  family,  when  he  had  terrified 
them  with  his  accounts  of  himself,  that  they  ought  to 
know  that  when  he  cried  Murder  he  was  not  always  being 
killed.  When  his  soul  seemed  all  black,  the  darkness  only 
broken  by  lightnings,  he  was  aware  that  sometimes  it  was 
only  a  want  of  potatoes.  Still,  in  the  exhaustion  which 
followed  on  long  exertion  he  was  always  wildly  humoured. 
About  May  he  found  that  he  wanted  fresh  change.  Some- 
thing was  amiss  with  Mrs.  Carlyle's  right  arm,  so  that  she 
had  lost  the  use  of  it  for  writing.  She  seemed  well  other- 
wise, however ;  she  had  no  objection  to  being  left  alone,  and 
he  set  oil  for  Anuaudale,  where  he  had  not  been  for  three 


244  Carlyleh  Life  in  London. 

years.  *  Poor  old  Scotland  ! '  lie  said,  '  it  almost  made  me 
greet  when  I  saw  it  again,  and  the  first  sonnd  of  a  Scotch 
guard,  and  his  broad  accent,  was  strange  and  affecting  to 
me.'  His  wife  and  he  had  grown  but  '  a  feckless  pair  of 
bodies,'  '  a  pair  of  miserable  creatures,'  but  they  would  not 
'  tine  heart;'  and  at  tlie  house  of  his  sister,  Mrs.  Austin, 
he  found  the  most  careful  preparations  for  his  comfort — 
^  new  pipes,'  '  new  towels,'  '  new,  excellent  potatoes,'  '  a 
new  sofa  to  lie  down  upon  after  his  rides,'  everything  that 
his  heart  could  wish  for. 

Not  a  sound  all  night  at  the  Gill,  he  wrote,  after  his  arrival,  ex- 
cept, at  stated  times,  the  grinding,  brief  clash  of  the  railway,  which, 
if  I  hear  it  at  all,  is  a  lash  or  loud  crack  of  the  Mainmoji  tvliip,  go- 
ing on  at  present  over  all  the  earth,  on  the  enslaved  backs  of  men  ; 
I  alone  enfranchised  from  it,  nothing  to  do  but  hear  it  savagely 
clashing,  breaking  God  Almighty's  silence  in  that  fatal  or  tragic 
manner,  saying — not  to  me — 'Ye  accursed  slaves  ! ' 

Mrs.  Carlyle  made  shift  to  write  to  him  with  the  hand 
which  was  left  to  her ;  lively  as  ever,  careful,  for  his  sake, 
to  take  her  misfortunes  lightly.  He,  on  his  part,  was  ad- 
miringly grateful. 

To  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle. 

The  Gill,  June  9. 
Thanks  for  the  struggle  you  have  made  to  get  me  a  word  of  au- 
thentic tidings  sent.  I  can  read  perfectly  youi'  poor  little  left- 
hand  lessons,  and  wonder  at  the  progress  you  have  made.  Don't 
be  impious,  however.  Your  poor  right  hand  will  be  restored  to 
you,  please  God  ;  and  we  may  depend  upon  it,  neither  the  coming 
nor  the  going  in  such  cases  goes  by  the  rule  of  caprice.  Alas  ! 
what  a  time  we  have  all  got  into  !  I  finished  last  night  the  dull- 
est thick  book,  long-winded,  though  intelligent,  of  Lyell ;  and  the 
tendency  of  it,  very  impotent,  was,  upon  the  whole,  to  prove  that 
we  are  much  the  same  as  the  apes  ;  that  Adam  was  probably  no 
other  than  a  fortunate  ourang-outang  who  succeeded  in  rising  in 
the  world.  May  the  Lord  confound  all  such  dreary  insolences  ot 
loquacious  blockheadism,  entitling  itself  Science.  Science,  as  the 
understanding  of  things  worth  knowing,  was  once  a  far  different 


lietreat  in  Annandale.  245 

matter  from  this  melancholy  maundering  and  idle  looking  into  the 
unknowable,  and  apparently  the  not  worth  knowing. 

He  had  his  horse  with  him — Fritz's  successor,  Lcidy 
Ashburton's  present,  whom  lie  called  Noggs.  On  Noggs's 
back  he  wandered  round  the  old  neighbourhood,  which  he 
had  first  known  as  a  schoolboy,  and  then  as  usher. 

Poor  old  Annan !  he  wrote.  There  the  old  houses  stood,  a 
bleared  evening  sun  shining  as  if  in  anger  on  them  ;  but  the  dis- 
agreeable, mostly  paltiy  living  creatures  who  used  to  vex  me  in 
those  days  were  all  gone;  The  old  Academy  House !  what  a  con- 
siderable stride  to  the  New  Academy  I  have  been  in  for  some  time, 
and  am  thinking  soon  to  quit.  Good  night,  ye  of  the  paltry  type 
—ye  of  the  lovely,  too.  Good,  and  good  only,  be  with  you  all ! 
Noggs  and  I,  after  these  reflections,  started  at  a  mighty  i^ace  for 
Cummertrees,  wind  howling  direct  in  our  faces,  and  were  there 
just  as  a  luggage  train  was  passing,  amid  tempests  of  muddy 
smoke,  with  a  shrieking  storm  of  discord,  which  Noggs  could  not 
but  pause  to  watch  the  passage  of,  with  a  mixture  of  wonder  and 
abhorrence.  The  waving  of  the  woods  about  Kelhead,  grandly 
soughing  in  the  windy  sunset,  soon  hushed  the  mind  of  both  of  us 
to  a  better  tone,  if  not  a  much  gladder. 

Again : — 

June-July,  1865. 
My  rides  are  very  strange,  in  the  mood  so  foreign  as  inine.  Last 
night,  6  to  8  p.m.,  was  a  perfect  whirlwind,  as  the  day  liad  been, 
though  othei-wise  fresh  and  genial.  I  went  for  the  first  time  by  the 
Priest-side  Sands.  Noggs  had  some  reluctance  to  put  forth  his 
speed  in  the  new  element :  strong  temi>ests  on  the  right  eye ;  on 
the  left  the  far-off  floods  of  Solway ;  Criflfel  and  the  mountains, 
with  the  foregroimd  of  flat  sand,  in  parts  white  with  salt,  right 
ahead.  But  I  made  the  dog  go,  and  had  really  a  very  interesting 
gallop,  as  different  from  that  of  Rotten  Row  as  could  well  be.  *  Oh, 
rugged  and  all-8upix)rting  mother  ! '  says  Orestes,  addressing  the 
cai-th.  One  has  now  no  other  sermon  in  the  world,  not  a  mockery 
and  a  sham,  but  that  of  these  telluric  and  celestial  silences,  broken 
by  such  winds  as  there  may  be. 

So  went  Carlyle's  summer  at  the  Gill.  She  meanwhile, 
dispirited  by  her  lamed  hand,  and  doubtful  of  the  future, 


246  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

resolved  that  she,  too,  would  see  Scotland  once  more  be- 
fore she  died.  Kot  guessing  how  ill  all  was  with  her  about 
the  heart,  he  wished  her  to  join  him  at  his  sister's. 

I  am  doing  myself  good  in  respect  of  health,  he  said,  though 
still  in  a  tremulous  state  of  nerves,  and  altogether  sombre  and  sad 
and  vacant.  My  hand  is  given  to  shake.  Alas  !  what  is  shaking 
to  other  states  we  know  of  ?  I  am  solitary  as  I  wished  to  be,  and 
do  not  object  to  the  gloom  and  dispiritment,  going  down  to  the 
utterly  dark.  If  they  like  to  rest  there,  let  them.  The  world  has 
become  in  many  parts  hideous  to  me.  Its  highest  high  no  longer 
looks  very  high  to  me  ;  only  my  poor  heart,  strange  to  say,  is  not 
very  much  blunted  by  all  it  has  got.  In  the  depths  of  silent  sad- 
ness, I  feel  as  if  there  were  still  as  much  love  in  me — all  gone  to 
potential  tears — as  there  was  in  my  earliest  day. 

Mrs.  Carlyle  was  proud  of  her  husband  ;  she  honoured  his 
character,  she  gloried  in  his  fame,  and  she  was  sure  of  his 
aifection.  But  in  her  sick  state  she  needed  rest,  and  rest, 
when  the  dark  spirit  was  on  him,  she  could  not  find  at  his 
side.  He  had  his  sister  with  him ;  he  had  his  brother 
James  close  at  hand.  To  these  kind  kindred  she  might 
safely  leave  him  ;  and  she  went  on  past  Annan  to  the  good 
Russells  in  Nithsdale,  who  had  nursed  her  in  the  past 
year.  Carlyle  wished  her  only  to  do  w^hat  would  give  her 
most  pleasure.  He  went  to  see  her  at  Thornhill,  met  her 
at  Dumfries,  was  satisfied  to  know  that  she  was  in  safe 
hands,  and  was  blind  to  the  rest. 

There  was  in  you  [he  wrote,  after  one  of  these  meetings]  such  a 
geniality  and  light  play  of  spirit,  when  you  get  into  talk,  as  was 
quite  surprising  to  me,  and  had  a  fine  beauty  in  it,  though  very 
sorrowful.  Courage  !  By-and-by  we  shall  see  the  end  of  this 
long  lane,  as  we  have  done  of  others,  and  all  will  be  better  than  it 
now  is. 

His  own  life  '  was  the  nearest  approach  to  zero  that  any 
son  of  Adam  could  make.'  He  read  'his  Boileau  '  lying  on 
the  grass,  '  sauntered  a  minimum,'  '  rode  a  maximum,' 
sometimes  even  began  to  think  of  work  again,  as  if  such 


RUi'tat  In  Anncmdale.  247 

idleness  were  disgraceful.  For  her,  evidently,  he  was  in 
no  alarm  at  all.  After  her  birthday,  he  paid  a  visit  to  his 
old  friend,  Mr.  Sj>edding,  at  Mirehouse,  near  Keswick. 
Spedding  himself  (elder  brother  of  James,  the  editor  of 
'  Bacon  ')  he  thought  one  of  the  best  men  he  had  ever 
known.  There  were  three /beautiful  young  ladies,'  Mr. 
Spedding's  daughters.  Mirehouse  was  beautiful,  and  so 
were  the  ways  of  it;  'everything  nice  and  neat,  dairy, 
cookery,  lodging  rooms.  Simplex  munditiis  the  real  title 
of  it,  not  to  speak  of  Skiddaw  and  the  finest  mountains  of 
the  earth.'  He  must  have  enjoyed  himself  indeed,  when 
he  could  praise  so  heartily.  *  My  three  days  at  Keswick,' 
lie  said  when  they  were  over,  *  are  as  a  small  polished  flag- 
stone, which  I  am  not  sorry  to  have  intercalated  in  the 
rough  floor  of  boulders  which  my  sojourn  otherwise  has 
been  in  these  parts.' 

To  Mrs.  Carlyle  Nithsdale  this  time  had  been  a  failure. 
The  sleeplessness  came  on  again,  and  she  fled  back  to 
Cheyne  Row.  *  Poor  witch-hunted  Goody,'  he  said  ;  *  was 
there  ever  such  a  chase  of  the  fiends  ? '  Miss  Bromley 
took  charge  of  her  at  Folkestone,  from  which  she  was 
able  to  send  a  brighter  account  of  herself.  He,  mean- 
while, lingered  on  at  his  brother's  at  Scotsbrig. 

I  am  the  idlest  and  most  contented  of  men,  he  said,  would 
things  but  let  me  alone,  and  time  stay  still.  The  clearness  of  the 
ail-  here,  the  old  hill-tops  and  grassy  silences — it  is  with  a  strange 
acquiescence  that  I  fancy  myself  as  bidding  probably  farewell  to 
them  for  the  last  time.  Annandale  is  gone  out  of  me,  lies  all  stark 
and  dead,  as  I  shall  soon  do,  too.    Why  not  ? 

The  peaceable  torpor  did  not  last  long.  He  was  roused 
first  into  a  burst  of  indignation  by  reading  an  *  insolent 
and  vulgar '  review  upon  Ruskin's  '  Sesame  and  Lilies.'  It 
was  written  by  a  man  who  professed  attachment  to  Mrs. 
Carlyle.  I  need  not  name  him  ;  he  is  dead  now,  and  can- 
not be  hurt  by  reading  Carlyle's  description  of  him  to  her ; 


24:8  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

A  dirtyish  little  pug,  irredeemably  imbedded  in  commonplace, 
and  grown  fat  upon  it,  and  prosperous  to  an  unwholesome  degree. 
Don't  ?/oi<  return  his  love.  Nasty  creature!  with  no  eye  for  the 
beautiful,  and  awefully  interesting  to  himself. 

In  xiiigiist  Carlyle  started  on  a  round  of  visits — to  Mr. 
Ei'skine  at  Linlatlien,  to  Sir  Willirm  Stirling  at  Keir,  to 
Edinburgh,  to  Lord  and  Lady  Lothian  at  j^ewbattle,  and 
then  again  to  Scotsbrig.  At  Linlatlien  as  wherever  he 
went,  he  was  a  most  welcome  guest ;  but  he  was  slightly 
out  of  humour  there. 

The  good  old  St.  Thomas,  he  wrote,  seemed  to  me  sometinaes  to 
have  grown  more  secular  in  these  his  last  years  ;  eats  better,  drinks 
ditto,  and  is  more  at  ease  in  the  world  :  very  wearisome,  and  in- 
clined to  feel  distressed  and  to  be  disputatious  on  his  new  theories 
about  God  when  Sinner  Thomas  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them. 

Erskine  was  not  conscious  of  a  fall  in  favom*,  either  for 
himself  or  his  theories,  and  his  own  allusion  to  Carlyle's 
visit  shows- that  the  differences  had  not  been  much  accentu- 
ated. He  had  hoped  that  Mrs.  Carlyle  would  have  come 
with  her  husband.  As  she  could  not,  he  wrote  her  an 
affectionate  letter,  in  which  some  of  the  offending  theories 
will  perhaps  be  found. 

To  Jane   Welsh  Carlyle. 

Linlathen  :  August  18,  1865. 

Beloved  Mrs.  Carlyle, — I  suppose  you  could  not  have  come  here, 
and  yet  it  is  with  some  sorrow  that  I  accept  this  arrangement,  as 
I  scarcely  expect  to  have  another  sight  of  your  dear  face  on  this 
earth.  One  might  ask  what  good  would  come  of  it  if  I  had.  I 
o[in  only  answer  that  ever  since  I  have  known  that  face  it  has  been 
a  cordial  to  me  to  see  it.  I  am  happy  to  think  that  you  are  get- 
ting better,  and  recovering  a  little  strength  after  that  long  suf- 
fering. 

I  have  a  paternal  feeling  towards  you,  a  tender  feeling,  as  for  a 
child,  though  you  may  think  I  have  no  right  to  have  such  a  feeling  ;  * 
and  yet  your  last  letter,  which  was  most  sweet  to  my  heart,  seemed 
to  say  that  you  almost  expected  such  a  feeling. 


Linlathen.  249 

The  way  in  which  I  should  like  to  express  that  feeling  would  be 
by  telling  you  things  which  I  have  myself  found  to  be  helpful  and 
supporting  in  trouble  and  darkness  and  confusion  ;  but  the  diffi- 
culty of  saying  the  thing  in  the  right  way  always  stops  both  mouth 
and  pen.  I  hope  God  will  sj^eak  it  to  you  in  his  own  right  way. 
There  is  an  expression  in  the  28th  Psalm  that  often  comes  to  me : 
•  Be  not  silent  unto  me,  lest  I  become  like  those  that  go  down  into 
the  pit.*  If  there  be  anything  that  I  have  a  perfect  assurance  of, 
it  is  this,  that  God  is  indeed  a  Father,  and  that  His  unchangeable 
imrpose  towards  me,  and  you,  and  all,  is  to  make  us  right ;  to  train 
us  into  the  capacity  of  a  full  sympathy  with  Himself,  and  thus  to 
unite  us  to  each  other  in  righteous  love.  I  require  such  a  confi- 
dence, and  I  cling  to  it,  in  spite  of  manifold  contradictions. 

I  am  glad  to  see  Mr.  Carlyle  so  well,  after  passing  through  such 
a  process.  He  sits  under  the  same  rowan  tree  that  he  sate  under 
when  here  before,  in  accordance  with  his  conservative  fidelity.  I 
have  a  fellow-feeling  with  him  iu  many  things,  and  love  his  single- 
ness of  heart  and  purpose  more  than  I  can  express. 

Ever  youi*8,  with  true  affection, 

T.  Ebskine. 

Carlyle,  for  his  part,  was  happy  to  find  himself  under 
his  brother's  roof  again  at  Scotsbrig. 

The  truth  is  [he  wrote  to  his  wife],  I  have  nowhere  been  so  com- 
fortably lodged  as  here  just  now.  Silence,  sleep  procurable  ;  and, 
indeed,  a  kind  of  feeling  that  I  am  a  little  better  really  since  get- 
ting home.  All  this,  added  to  the  loveliest  skies  I  ever  saw,  clear 
as  diamonds  this  day,  and  an  earth  lying  white  to  the  harvest,  vdih 
monitions  in  it  against  human  gloom — all  this  is  here ;  but,  as 
usual,  it  can  only  last  for  a  day.  My  Edinburgh,  Keir,  &c.,  fort- 
night was  not  without  profit,  perhaps,  though  the  interest  it  could 
have  to  me  was  only  small  ;  not  a  single  loved  face  there.  Ah 
me !  so  few  anywhere  at  this  date.  The  physiognomies,  all  Scotch, 
looked  curious  to  me,  the  changed  streets  and  businesses.  The 
horrors  of  the  railway  station  called  "Waverley,  where  John  often 
had  me,  are  a  thing  to  remember  all  one's  life — perhaps  the  live- 
liest emblem  of  Tartarus  this  earth  affords.  Newbattle  is  fine  of 
its  kind,  and  finely  Scotch.  Nobody  there  but  the  two  poor  in- 
mates '  and  a  good-humoured  painter,  doing  portrait  of  the  lady. 

I  Lord  Ijothiiin  had  )>een  already  Atrnok,  in  the  rDi<lRt  of  his  brilliant  prom- 
ise, by  the  hIow,  creeping  malady  which  eventually  killed  him. 


250  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

The  lady  took  me  out  to  walk,  talked  like  a  sad,  serious,  enquir- 
ing, and  intelligent  soul ;  the  saddest,  thin,  kindly,  anxious  face 
you  could  anywhere  see.  The  Marquis  did  not  appear  till  lunch- 
eon ;  a  truly  beautiful  young  man,  body  and  mind,  weaker  than 
ever,  hands  now  shaking,  eyes  beginning  to  fail,  but  heart  as  lively 
as  ever.  We  had  a  great  deal  of  innocent,  cheerfully  reasonable 
talk,  and  I  daresay  my  advent  might  be  a  kind  of  relief,  like  a  tree 
in  the  steppe,  in  the  melancholy  monotony  of  such  a  life.  Had  you 
and  my  lady  been  fairly  acquainted,  she  wouM  have  liked  you  well. 

The  Slimmer  ended,  as  summers  do  and  summers  will, 
and  autumn  saw  the  Carlyles  together  once  more  in  their 
Chelsea  home,  which  one  of  them  was  not  again  to  leave 
alive.  The  great  outward  event  of  Carlyle's  own  life, 
Scotland's  public  recognition  of  him,  was  now  lying  close 
ahead.  This  his  wife  w^as  to  live  to  witness  as  her  final 
happiness  in  this  world.  She  seemed  stronger,  slept  tol- 
erably, drove  about  daily  in  her  brougliam ;  occasionally 
even  dined  out.  Once  I  remember  meeting  her  and  Car- 
lyle  this  autumn  at  the  Dean  of  Westminster's,  and  walk- 
ing home  with  him.  Once  they  dined  with  me  to  meet 
Mr.  Spedding  of  Mirehonse,  Ruskin,  and  Dean  Milman. 
liuskin,  I  recollect,  that  night  was  particularly  brilliant, 
and  with  her  was  a  special  favourite.  She  was  recovering 
slightly  the  use  of  her  right  hand  ;  she  could  again  write 
with  it ;  and  nothing  visible  on  the  surface  indicated  that 
danger  was  near. 

I  had  been  at  Edinburgh,  and  had  heard  Gladstone 
make  his  great  oration  on  Homer  there,  on  retiring  from 
office  as  Rector.  It  was  a  grand  display.  I  never  recog- 
nised before  what  oratory  could  do  ;  the  audience  being 
kept  for  three  hours  in  a  state  of  electric  tension,  bursting 
every  moment  into  applause.  Nothing  was  said  which 
seemed  of  moment  when  read  deliberately  afterwards ; 
but  the  voice  was  like  enchantment,  and  the  street,  when 
we  left  the  building,  was  ringing  with  a  prolongation  of 
the  cheers.     Perhaps  in  all  Britain  there  was  not  a  man 


The  Edinburgh  Rectorship,  2o\ 

whose  views  on  all  subjects,  in  Leaven  and  earth,  less  re- 
sembled Gladstone's  than  those  of  the  man  whom  this 
same  applauding  multitude  elected  to  take  his  place.  The 
students  too,  perhaps,  were  ignorant  how  wide  the  contra- 
diction was ;  but  if  they  had  been  awaj-e  of  it  they  need 
not  have  acted  differently.  Carlyle  had  been  one  of  them- 
selves, lie  had  risen  from  among  them — not  by  birth  or 
favour,  not  on  the  ladder  of  any  established  profession, 
but  only  by  the  internal  force  that  was  in  him — to  the 
liighest  place  as  a  modern  man  of  letters.  In  *  Frederick ' 
he  had  given  the  finish  to  his  reputation  ;  he  stood  now 
at  the  summit  of  his  fame  ;  and  the  Edinburgh  students 
desired  to  mark  their  admiration  in  some  signal  svay.  He 
had  been  mentioned  before,  but  he  had  declined  to  be  nom- 
inated, for  a  party  only  were  then  in  his  favour. 

On  this  occasion  the  students  were  unanimous,  or  nearly 
so.  His  own  consent  was  all  that  was  wanting,  and  the 
question  lay  befoi-eliim  whether,  hating  as  he  did  all  pub- 
lic displays,  he  would  accept  a  quasi-coronation  from  them. 

On  [November  7,  1865,  he  wrote  to  his  brother : — 

My  Rectorate,  it  seems,  is  a  thing  settled,  which  by  no  means 
oversets  my  composure  with  joy  !  A  young  Edinburgh  man  came 
liere  two  weeks  ago  to  remind  me  that  last  tim^,  in  flatly  refusing, 
I  had  partly  promised  for  this  if  my  work  was  done.  I  objected  to 
the  '  speech.'  He  declared  it  to  be  a  thing  they  would  dispense 
with.  Well !  if  so  !  I  concluded  ;  but  do  not  as  yet  see  my  way 
through  that  latter  clause,  which  is  the  sore  one.  Indeed,  I  have 
yet  heard  noOiinq  "official  upon  it,  and  did  not  even  see  the  news- 
paper paragraph  till  yesterday.  Hat  gar  wenig  zu  becleuten,  one 
way  or  the  other. 

Hat  wenig  zu  hedenten.  So  Carlyle  might  say— but  it 
was  hedeutend  to  him  nevertheless,  and  still  more  so  to  his 
wife.  It  seemed  strange  to  me,  so  strange  as  to  be  almost 
incredible,  that  the  Rectorship  of  a  Scotch  University 
could  be  supposed  to  add  anything  to  the  position  which 
Carlyle  had  made  for  himself.     But  there  were  peculiar 


252  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

circumstances  which  gave  to  this  one  special  form  of  rec- 
ognition an  exceptional  attractiveness.  Carljle's  reputa- 
tion was  English,  German,  American — Scotch  also — but 
Scotch  only  to  a  certain  degree.  There  had  always  in 
Scotland  been  an  opposition  party ;  and  if  the  propliet 
had  some  honour  in  his  own  country,  it  was  less  than  in 
other  places.  At  least  some  feeling  of  this  kind  existed  in 
Cheyne  Row,  though  it  may  have  been  partly  fancy,  and 
due  to  earlier  associations.  Carlyle's  Edinburgh  memories 
were  almost  all  painful.  His  University  days  had  been 
without  distinction.  They  had  been  followed  by  dreai-y 
schoolmastering  days  at  Kirkcaldy,  and  the  scarcely  less 
dreary  years  of  private  tutoring  in  Edinburgh  again. 
When  Miss  Welsh,  of  Haddington,  announced  that  she 
was  to  be  married  to  him,  the  unheard  of  mesalliance  had 
been  the  scoff  of  Edinburgh  society  and  of  her  father's 
and  mother's  connections  there.  It  had  been  hoped  af- 
ter the  marriage  that  some  situation  might  have  been 
found  for  him,  and  they  had  settled  in  Comely  Bank  with 
a  view  to  it.  All  efforts  failed,  however,  and  nothing 
could  be  done.  At  Graigenputtock  he  laid  the  foundation 
of  his  reputation — but  his  applications  for  employment  in 
Scotland  had  been  still  refused  invariably,  and  sometimes 
contumeliously.  London  treated  him,  in  1831,  as  a  per- 
son of  importance  ;  when  he  spent  the  winter  following  in 
Edinburgh  he  was  coldly  received  there — received  with  a 
dislike  which  was  only  not  contempt  because  it  was  quali- 
fied wdth  fear.  This  was  all  past  and  gone,  but  he  had 
always  a  feeling  that  Edinburgh  had  not  treated  him  well. 
The  Eectorship  would  be  a  public  acknowledgment  that 
his  countrymen  had  been  mistaken  about  him,  and  he  had 
an  innocent  satisfaction  in  the  thought  of  it.  She,  too, 
had  a  similar  feeling.  Among  old  friends  of  his  family, 
who  knew  little  about  literature,  there  was  still  an  impres- 
sion that  '  Jeannie  Welsh  had  throsvn  herself  away.'    They 


The  Ediiiburgh  Rectorship,  25S 

would  be  forced  to  say  now  that  *  Jeannie  was  right  after 
all/  She  laughed  when  she  talked  about  it,  and  I 
could  hardly  believe  that  she  was  serious.  But  evidently 
both  in  him  and  her  some  consciousness  of  the  kind  was 
really  working,  and  this  perhaps  more  than  anything  else 
determined  him  to  go  through  with  a  business  which,  in 
detail,  was  sure  to  be  distressing  to  him. 

Thus  it  was  all  settled.  Carlyle  was  chosen  Rector  of 
Edinburgh  University,  and  was  to  be  installed  in  the  en- 
suing spring.  The  congratulations  which  poured  in  all 
the  winter — especially  from  Mrs.  C.'s  Scotch  kinsfolk — 
'  amused '  them.  Even  a  speech  had  been  promised,  and 
so  long  as  it  was  at  a  distance  seemed  not  inexecu table. 

The  Rectorial  office,  he  wrote  on  December  21  to  his  brother 
John,  is  beginning  to  promise  to  be  a  highly  pacific  one  ;  and  has 
already  shifted  itself  to  a  comer  of  the  mind  where  I  seldom  re- 
member it,  and  never  almost  with  anything  of  anxiety  or  displeas- 
ure. When  the  time  for  speaking  approaches  I  shall  have  to  be- 
think me  a  little,  and  be  bothered  and  tumbled  about  for  a  week 
or  so ;  but  that  done  I  hoj^e  essentially  all  will  be  done. 

During  the  winter  I  saw  much  of  him.  He  was,  for 
him,  in  good  spirits,  lighter-hearted  than  I  had  ever  known 
him.  He  would  even  admit  occasionally  that  he  was  mod- 
erately well  in  health.  Even  on  the  public  side  of  things 
he  fancied  that  there  were  symptoms  of  a  possibility  of  a 
better  day  coming.  In  Ruskin  he  had  ever-increasing 
hope  and  confidence. 

I  have  been  reading  (he  says  on  the  same  day)  a  strange  little 
Christmas  book  of  Ruskin's,  called  *  Ethics  of  the  Dust.**'  It  is  all 
about  crystallography,  and  seems  to  be,  or  is,  geologically  well- 
informed  and  connect ;  but  it  twists  symbolically  in  the  strangest 
way  all  its  geology  into  morality,  theology,  Egyptian  m}-thology, 
with  fiery  cuts  at  political  economy ;  pretending  not  to  know 
whether  the  forces  and  destinies  and  behaviour  of  crystals  are  not 
very  like  those  of  a  man  !  Wonderful  to  behold.  The  book  ia 
full  of  admirable  talent,  with  such  a  faculty  of  expression  in  it,  or 
of  pictunng  out  what  is  meant,  as  beats  all  living  rivals. 


CHAPTEE  XXYIII. 

A.D.  1866.    iET.  71. 

Preparations  for  the  Eectorship — Journey  to  Edinburgh — Tyndall 
— The  Installation — Carlyle's  speech — Character  of  it — E£fect 
upon  the  world — Cartoon  in  '  Punch  ' — Carlyle  stays  at  Scots- 
brig  to  recover — Intended  tea-party  in  Cheyne  Eow — Sudden 
death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle — John  Forster — Funeral  at  Haddington 
— Letters  from  Erskine — Carlyle's  answers. 

The  time  approached  for  the  installation  and  the  delivery 
of  the  speech  in  Edinburgh.  Through  the  winter  Car- 
lyle had  dismissed  it  from  his  mind  as  the  drop  of  bitter 
in  his  cup  ;  but  it  had  now  to  be  seriously  faced.  To  read 
would  have  been  handiest  to  him,  but  he  determined  to 
speak.  A  speech  was  not  an  essay.  A  speech  written 
and  delivered,  or  even  written  and  learnt  by  heart  was 
to  him  an  imposture,  or,  at  best,  an  insincerity.  He  did 
not  seem  to  be  anxious,  but  anxious  he  was,  and  painfully 
so.  He  had  never  spoken  in  public  since  the  lecture  days. 
He  had  experienced  then  that  he  could  do  it,  and  could 
do  it  eminently  well  if  he  had  practised  the  art — but  he 
had  not  practised.  In  private  talk  he  had  no  living  equal ; 
words  flowed  like  ]^iagara.  But  a  private  room  among 
friends,  and  a  hall  crowded  with  strangers  where  he  was 
to  stand  up  alone  under  two  thousand  pairs  of  eyes,  were 
things  entirely  different ;  and  Carlyle,  with  all  his  imperi- 
ousness  and  high  scornful  tones,  was  essentially  shy — one 
of  the  shyest  of  men.  He  resolved,  however,  as  his  father 
used  to  say,  to  'gar  himself  go  through  with  the  thing,' or 


The  Rectorship.  255 

at  least  to  try.  If  lie  broke  down,  as  he  thought  that  he 
probably  would,  he  was  old  aud  weak,  and  it  could  signify 
little.  Still,  he  says  that  he  '  was  very  miserable,'  '  angry 
with  himself  for  getting  into  such  a  coil  of  vanity,'  pro- 
voked that  a  performance  which,  to  a  vulgar  orator  would 
be  a  pride  and  delight,  should  to  him  appear  so  dreadful. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  kept  up  his  spirits,  made  fun  of  his  fears, 
bantered  him,  encouraged  him,  herself  at  heart  as  much 
alarmed  as  he  was,  but  conscious,  too,  of  the  ridiculous 
side  of  it  She  had  thought  of  going  with  him,  as  she 
had  gone  with  him  to  his  lectures,  but  her  courage  mis- 
gave her.  Among  the  fieaks  of  her  imagination  she 
fancied  that  he  might  fall  into  a  fit,  or  drop  down  dead  in 
the  excitement.  She  had  herself  been  conscious  lately  of 
curious  sensations  and  sharp  twinges,  which  might  mean 
worse  than  she  knew.  A  sudden  shock  might  make  an 
end  of  her  also,  *  and  then  there  would  be  a  scene.'  There 
would  be  plenty  of  friends  about  him.  Huxley  was  going 
down,  and  Tyndall,  who,  wide  as  his  occupations  and  line 
of  thought  lay  from  Carlyle's,  yet  esteemed,  honoured, 
loved  him  as  much  as  any  man  living  did.  Tyndall  made 
himself  responsible  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  that  her  husband 
should  be  duly  attended  to  on  the  road  and  at  the  scene 
of  action ;  and  to  Tyndall's  care  she  was  content  to  leave 
him.  The  journey  was  to  be  broken  at  P'ryston,  where  he 
would  be  received  by  Milnes,  now  Lord  Houghton.  There 
he  was  to  stay  two  nights,  and  then  go  on  to  Scotland. 

Accordingly,  on  Thursday,  the  29th  of  March,  at  nine 
a.m.,  Tyndall  appeared  with  a  cab  in  Cheyne  Kow,  he 
himself  radiant — confident— or  if  he  felt  misgivings  (I  be- 
lieve he  felt  none),  resolute  not  to  show  them.  Carlyle 
submitted  passively  to  his  directions,  and  did  not  seem 
outwardly  disturbed,  '  in  the  saddest  sickly  mood,  full  of 
gloom  and  misery ;  but  striving  to  hide  it.'  She,  it  was 
observed,  looked  pale  and  ill,  but  in  those  days  she  sel- 


256  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

dom  looked  otherwise.  She  had  been  busy  providing 
little  comforts  for  his  journey.  Remembering  the  lecture 
days  she  gave  him  her  own  small  travelling  flask,  with  a 
single  glass  of  brandy  in  it,  that  he  might  mix  and  drink 
it  in  the  Hall,  and  think  of  her  and  be  inspired. 

'The  last  I  saw  of  her- (he  says)  was  as  she  stood  with 
her  back  to  the  parlom-  door  to  bid  me  good-bye.  She 
kissed  me  twice,  she  me  once,  I  her  a  second  time.'  The 
cab  drove  away.  They  were  never  to  meet  again  in  this 
world.  '  Tyndall,'  he  says  in  his  journal,  '  was  kind, 
cheery,  inventive,  helpful.  The  loyallest  son  could  not 
have  more  faithfully  striven  to  support  his  father  under 
every  difficulty  that  rose,  and  they  were  many.'  In  a 
letter  he  says,  '  Tyndall's  conduct  to  me  has  been  loy- 
alty's own  self  :  no  adoring  son  could  have  more  faith- 
fully watched  a  decrepit  father.'  Fryston  was  reached 
without  misadventure.  '  Lord  and  Lady  Houghton's 
kindness  was  unbounded.'  Tyndall  wrote  to  Mrs.  Carlyle 
daily  reporting  everything  on  its  brightest  side,  though 
the  omer;s  did  not  open  propitiously.  '  My  first  night,' 
he  wrote  himself,  '  owing  to  railway  and  other  noises,  not 
to  speak  of  excitations,  talkings,  dinnerings,  was  totally 
sleepless  ;  a  night  of  wandering,  starting  to  vain  tobacco 
and  utter  misery,  thought  of  flying  off  next  morning  to 
Auchtertool  for  quiet.'  Morning  light  and  reflection  re- 
stored some  degree  of  composure.  He  was  allowed  to 
breakfast  alone — Tyndall  took  him  out  for  a  long,  brisk 
ride.  He  dined  again  alone.,  threw  himself  on  a  sofa, 
'  and  by  Heaven's  blessing,  had  an  hour  and  a  half  of  real 
sleep.'  In  his  bed  he  slept  again  for  seven  or  eight  hours, 
and  on  the  Saturday  on  \vhich  he  w^as  to  proceed  found 
himself  '  a  new  man.' 

Huxley  had  joined  the  party  at  Fryston.  Lord  Hough- 
ton w^ent  with  them  as  far  as  York.  The  travellino^  was 
disagreeable.     Carlyle  reached  Edinburgh  in  the  evening, 


The  Rectorship.  257 

*  the  forlomest  of  all  physical  wretches.'  There  too  the 
first  night  was  *  hideous,'  with  '  dreadful  feelings  that 
speaking  would  be  impossible,'  *that  he  would  utterly 
break  down  ; '  to  which  he  in  his  mind  said,  *  well  then,' 

*  and  was  preparing  to  treat  it  with  the  best  contempt  he 
could.'  On  Sunday,  however,  he  found  himself  sur- 
rounded with  friendly  faces.  Mr.  Erskine  had  come  from 
Linlathen.  His  two  brothers  were  there  from  Scotsbrig  ; 
all  Edinburgh  was  combining  to  do  him  honour,  and  was 
hearty  and  warm  and  enthusiastic.  His  dispiritment  was 
not  proof  against  a  goodwill  which  could  not  but  be  agree- 
able. He  collected  himself,  slept  well  the  Sunday  night 
(as  felons  sleep,  he  would  himself  probably  have  said,  the 
night  before  execution),  and  on  the  Monday  was  ready  for 
action. 

The  installation  of  a  Rector  is  a  ceremonious  affair. 
Ponderous  robes  have  to  be  laid  on,  and  there  is  a  march- 
ing in  procession  of  officials  and  dignitaries  in  crimson 
and  ermine  through  the  centre  of  the  crowded  Hall.  Tlie 
Rector  is  led  to  a  conspicuous  chair ;  an  oath  is  ad- 
rainisteyed  to  him,  and  the  business  begins. 

When  Carlyle  rose  in  his  seat  he  was  received  with  an 
enthusiasm  at  least  as  loud  as  had  been  shown  for  Mr. 
Gladstone — and  perhaps  the  feeling  of  the  students,  as  he 
had  been  one  of  themselves — was  more  completely  genu- 
ine. I  believe — for  I  was  not  present — that  he  threw  off 
the  heavy  academical  gown.  He  had  not  been  accustomed 
to  robes  of  honour.  He  had  been  only  a  man  all  his  life  ; 
ho  chose  to  be  a  man  still ;  about  to  address  a  younger 
generation  who  had  come  together  to  hear  something  that 
jnight  be  of  use  to  them.  He  says  of  himself,  *  My  speech 
was  delivered  as  in  a  mood  of  defiant  despair,  and  under 
the  pressure  of  nightmare.  Some  feeling  that  I  was  not 
speaking  lies  alone  sustained  me.  The  applause,  <Src.,  I 
took  for  empty  noise,  which  it  really  was  not  altogether.' 
Vol.  IV.~17 


258  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

This  is  merely  his  own  way  of  expressing  that  he  was  do- 
ing what  he  did  not  like  ;  that,  having  undertaken  it,  he 
became  interested  in  what  he  was  about,  grew  possessed 
with  his  subject,  and  fell  into  the  automatic  state  in  which 
alone  either  speaking  or  any  other  valuable  work  can  be 
done  as  it  ought  to  be.  His  voice  was  weak.  There  were 
no  more  volleys  of  the  old  Annandale  grape-shot ;  other- 
wise he  was  easy,  fluent,  and  like  himself  in  his  calmest 
mood. 

He  began  with  a  pretty  allusion  to  the  time  when  he 
had  first  come  up  (fifty-six  years  before)  to  Edinburgh  to 
attend  the  University  classes.  Two  entire  generations  had 
passed  away  since  that  time.  A  third,  in  choosing  him 
as  Rector,  was  expressing  its  opinion  of  the  use  which  he 
had  made  of  hisJife,  and  was  declaring  that  'he  had  not 
been  an  unworthy  labourer  in  the  vineyard.'  At  his  age, 
and  residing  as  he  did,  far  away  in  London,  he  could  be 
of  little  service  to  the  University,  but  he  might  say  a  few 
words  to  the  students  which  might  perhaps  be  of  some 
value  to  them.  In  soft,  earnest  language,  with  the  plain- 
est common  sense,  made  picturesque  by  the  form  in  which 
it  was  expressed,  he  proceeded  to  impress  on  them  the 
elementary  duties  of  diligence,  fidelity,  and  honest  exer- 
tion, in  their  present  work,  as  a  preparation  for  their  com- 
ing life.  Their  line  of  study  was,  in  the  main,  marked 
out  for  them.  So  far  as  they  could  choose  (after  a  half- 
reverent,  half -humorous  allusion  to  theologj^-,  exactly  in 
the  right  tone  for  a  modern  audience)  he  advised  them  to 
read  history — especially  Greek  and  Roman  history — and 
to  observe  especially  how,  among  these  nations,  piety  and 
awe  of  the  gods  lay  at  the  bottom  of  their  greatness ;  that 
witliout  such  qualities  no  man  or  nation  ever  came  to 
good.  Thence  he  passed  to  British  history,  to  Oliver 
Cromwell,  to  their  own  Knox  (one  of  the  select  of  the 
earth),  to  the  Covenanters,  to  the  resolute  and  noble  effort 


Speech  at  Edinburgh.  259 

of  the  Scotch  people  to  make  Clirisf  s  Gospel  the  rule  of 
their  daily  lives,  lieligioii  was  the  thing  essential.  The- 
ology was  not  so  essential,  lie  was  giving  in  hrief  a  pop- 
ular epitome  of  his  own  opinions  and  the  growth  of  them. 
In  early  life  he  had  himself  been  a  Radical.  He  was 
a  Radical  still  in  substance,  though  no  longer  after  the 
popular  type,  lie  was  addressing  students  who  were  as  ar- 
dent in  that  matter  as  he  had  himself  once  been,  and  he 
was  going  on  dangerous  ground  as  he  advanced.  But  he 
chose  to  speak  as  he  felt.  He  touched  upon  democracy. 
He  showed  how  democracies,  from  the  nature  of  things, 
never  had  been,  and  never  could  be  of  long  continuance ; 
how  essential  it  was,  in  such  a  world  as  ours,  that  the 
noblest  and  wisest  should  lead  and  that  the  rest  should 
obey  and  follow.  It  was  thus  that  Engjand  and  Scotland 
had  grown  to  be  what  they  were.  It  ^-as  thus  only  that 
they  could  keep  the  place  which  they  had  won.  We  were 
apt  to  think  that  through  the  spread  of  reading  and  knowl- 
edge the  conditions  of  human  nature  were  changed,  and 
that  inequalities  no  longer  existed.  He  thought  slightly 
of  the  spread  of  knowledge  as  it  was  called,  *  maid-servants 
getting  instructed  in  the  'ologies,'  and  *  knowing  less  of 
brewing,  and  boiling,  and  baking,  of  obedience,  modesty, 
humility,  and  moral  conduct.'  Knowledge,  wisdom,  true 
superiority  was  as  hard  to  come  at  no\\r  as  ever,  and  there 
were  just  as  few  that  arrived  at  it.  He  then  touched  on 
another  branch  of  the  same  subject,  one  on  which  he  was 
often  thinking,  the  belief  in  oratory  and  oi-ators  which 
was  now  so  widely  prevailing.  Demosthenes  might  be  the 
greatest  of  orators,  but  Phocion  proved  right  in  the  facts. 
And  then  after  a  word  from  Goethe  on  education,  he 
came  to  speak  of  this  present  age,  in  which  our  own  lot 
was  cast.  He  spoke  of  it  then  as  he  always  did — as  an  era 
of  anarchy  and  disintegration,  in  which  all  things,  not 
made  of  asbestos,  were  on  the  way  to  being  consumed. 


260  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

He  did  not  complain  of  this.  He  only  bade  his  hearers 
observe  it  and  make  the  best  of  it.  He  told  them  to  be 
true  and  faithful  in  their  own  lives  ;  to  endeavour  to  do 
right,  not  caring  whether  they  succeeded,  as  it  was  called, 
in  life ;  to  play  their  own  parts  as  quietly  and  simply  as 
they  could,  and  to  leave  the  rest  to  Providence.  '  Don't 
suppose,'  he  said,  'that  people  are  hostile  to  you,  or  bear' 
you  ill-will  in  the  world.  You  may  often  feel  as  if  the 
whole  world  was  obstructing  you,  setting  itself  against 
you  ;  but  yon  will  find  that  to  mean  that  the  world  is  trav- 
elling in  a  different  way,  and,  rushing  on  its  own  paths, 
heedlessly  treads  on  you.  That  is  mostly  all.  To  you 
there  is  no  specific  ill-will.'  He  bade  them  walk  straight 
forward ;  not  expecting  that  life  would  be  strewed  with 
roses ;  and  knowing  that  they  must  meet  their  share  of 
evil  as  well  as  good.  Bnt  he  told  them,  too,  that  they 
would  find  friends  if  they  deserved  them,  and  in  fact 
would  meet  the  degree  of  success  which  tliey  had  on  the 
whole  deserved.  He  wound  up  with  Goethe's  hymn, 
w^hich  he  had  called,  to  Sterling,  '  The  marching  music  of 
the  Teutonic  nations ; '  and  he  finished  with  the  words 
which  to  the  end  were  so  often  npon  his  own  lips ; 

'  Wir  heissen  euch  hoffen.''     (We  bid  you  to  hope.) 

He  was  long  puzzled  at  the  effect  upon  the  Avorld's  esti- 
mate of  him  which  this  speech  produced.  There  was  not 
a  word  in  it  which  he  had  not  already  said,  and  said  far 
more  forcibly  a  hundred  times.  But  suddenly  and 
thenceforward,  till  his  death  set  them  off  again,  hostile 
tongues  ceased  to  speak  against  him,  and  hostile  pens  to 
write.  The  speech  was  printed  in  full  in  half  the  news- 
papers in  the  island.  It  was  received  with  universal  ac- 
clamation. A  low  price  edition  of  his  works  became  in 
demand,  and  they  flew  into  a  strange  temporary  popu- 
larity with  the  reading  multitude.  Sartor,  '  poor  beast,' 
had  struggled  into. life  with    difficulty,  and    its    readers 


The  Iitdi>nshij>,  261 

since  had  been  few,  if  select.  20,000  copies  of  the  «liil- 
ling  edition  of  it  were  now  sold  instantly  on  its  publica- 
tion. It  was  now  admitted  universally  that  Carlyle  was  a 
'  great  man.'  Yet  he  saw  no  inclination,  not  the  slightest, 
to  attend  to  his  teaching,  lie  hiujself  could  not  make  it 
out,  but  the  explanation  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  Edinburgh 
address  contained  his  doctrines  with  the  fire  which  had 
provoked  the  animosity  taken  out  of  them.  They  were  le- 
duced  to  the  level  of  church  sermons ;  thrown  into  general 
propositions  wliich  it  is  pretty  and  i*ight  and  becoming  to 
confess  with  our  lips,  while  no  one  is  supposed  to  act  on 
them.  We  admire  and  praise  the  beautiful  language,  and 
we  reward  the  performance  with  a  bishopric,  if  the  speaker 
be  a  clergyman.  Carlyle,  people  felt  with  a  sense  of  relief, 
meant  only  what  the  preachers  meant,  and  was  a  fine  fel- 
low after  all. 

The  address  had  been  listened  to  with  delight  by  the 
students,  and  had  ended  amidst  rounds  of  applause.  Tyn- 
dall  telegraphed  to  Mrs.  Carlyle  his '  brief  but  suflicient 
message,  'A  perfect  triumph.'  The  maids  in  Cheyne 
liow  clapped  their  hands  when  it  arrived.  Maggie  Welsh 
danced  for  delight.  Mrs.  Carlyle  drove  off  to  Forster's, 
where  she  was  to  dine.  Dickens  and  Wilkie  Collins  were 
there,  and  they  drank  Carlyle's  health,  and  it  was,  as  she 
said,  '  a  good  joy.'  He  meanwhile  had  escaped  at  his 
best  speed  from  the  scene  of  liis  exploit ;  making  for  his 
brother's  lodgings  in  George  Street,  where  he  could  smoke 
a  pipe  and  collect  himself.  Hundreds  of  lads  followed 
him,  crowding  and  hurrahing. 

I  waved  my  hand  prohibitively  at  the  door  (he  wrote),  perhaps 
lifted  my  hat,  and  they  gave  but  one  cheer  more— something  in  the 
tone  of  it  which  did  for  the  first  time  go  into  my  heart.  Poor 
young  men,  so  well  affected  to  the  poor  old  brother  or  grandfather 
here,  and  in  such  a  black  whirlpool  of  a  world,  all  of  us. 

*  Letters  and  MemolH<;U*^  vol.  ii  p.  883. 


262  Carlifles  Life  in  London, 

He  dispatched  a  few  words  home. 

All  is  finished,  and  rather  well,  infinitely  better  than  I  often  ex- 
pected. You  never  saw  such  a  tempest  of  enthusiastic  excitation  as 
that  among  the  student  people.  Never  in  the  world  was  I  in  such 
a  scene.  I  took  your  drop  of  brandy  with  me— mixed  it  in  a  tum- 
bler for  cooling  of  the  tongue.  I  had  privately  a  kind  of  threap 
that  the  brandy  should  be  yours. 

The  note  sent  off,  he  had  a  qniet  walk  in  the  twilight 
with  Erskine  and  his  brother  James. 

Some  fragments  of  ornamental  work  had  still  to  be  gone 
through  ;  invitations  to  tliis  and  that,  and  congratulations 
to  reply  to  ;  '  Spedding's  letter  welcomer  than  any  other.' 
He  slept  tolerably  in  spite  of  excitement,  but  was  '  like  a 
man  killed  with  kindness,  all  the  w^orld  coming  tumbling 
on  him.  Do  me  this,  see  me  that !  above  all,  dine,  dine  ! ' 
He  stayed  four  days  in  the  middle  of  all  this.  On  the, 
Thursday  he  was  worn  out.  '  Oh  ! '  he  cried,  ^  there  never 
was  such  an  eleinent — comparable  to  that  of  the  three  chil- 
dren in  the  fire  before  Kebuchadnezzai".  .  .  .'  His 
original  plan  had  been  to  go  straight  home,  but  he  was 
tempted  by  the  thought  of  a  few  peaceful  days  in  Annan- 
dale,  before  plunging  into  London  again.  On  the  Friday 
he  made  for  quiet  Scotsbrig,  there,  with  no  company  but 
his  brother  and  his  sister  Mary,  to  '  cool  down  and  re- 
cover his  wits.'  The  newspapers,  meanwhile,  were  sound- 
ing his  praises.  '  Punch,'  always  affectionate,  even  in  the 
Pamphlet  times,  had  a  cartoon  in  which  Carlyle  was  seen 
speaking  on  one  side,  like  a  gently  wise  old  patriarch,  and 
Bright  on  the  other,  with  due  contrast  of  face  and  senti- 
ment. At  the  end  of  a  week  he  was  in  his  old  condition 
again.  '  Seldom,'  he  said,  '  have  I  been  better  in  the  last 
six  months,  so  blessed  is  the  country  stillness  to  me,  the 
purity  of  sky  and  earth,  and  the  absence  of  all  babble 
and  annoyance.'  He  would  then  have  hastened  back,  but 
he  met  with  an  accident,  a  slight  sprain  on  one  of  his 


Ills    Nru.jnt^^r.^.  263 

ankles,  sent,  he  supposed,  '  to  keep  him  in  the  level  of 
common  humanity,  and  take  any  undue  conceit  out  of 
him.'  Thus  he  lingered  on,  not  sorry,  perhaps,  for  the 
excuse.  *  Punch  '  came  to  Scotsbrig,  and  *  gave  every- 
body heai-ty  entertainment.'  *  The  thing,'  he  said,  *  is 
really  capital,  and  has  been  done  by  some  thoroughly 
well-wishing  man.  Tlie  portrait,  too,  is  not  bad,  though 
comical  a  little,  and  the  slap  directed  on  Bright  is  per- 
fectly suitable.'  Mill  wrote  as  warmly  as  he  could  about 
an  address  which  must  have  been  wholly  unpalatable,  Mrs. 
Carlyle  sending  the  letter  down  to  him,  and  expecting 
he  *  would  scream  at  sucli  a  frosty  nothingness.'  lie  did 
not  scream,  he  answered,  because  he  had  ceased  to  care 
what  Mill  might  do* or  forbear  to  do.  'Mill  essentially 
was  made  of  saw^dust,  he  and  his  "  great  thinking  of  the 
Age,"  and  was  to  be  left  lying,  with  good-bye  and  peace 
to  him  for  evermore.' 

The  ankle  was  long  in  mending,  and  the  return  was  still 
delayed.     On  the  19th  of  April  he  wrote — 

Nothing  from  Goody  to-day — well,  you  have  been  handsomely 
diligent  of  late,  and  have  given  me  at  least  one  sunny  blink  among 
the  great  dreary  mass  I  get  on  awaking  to  a  new  day.  I  am  very 
well  in  health  here,  sleep  better  than  for  a  month  past,  in  spite  of 
the  confusion  and  imperfect  arrangements.  The  rides  do  me  good. 
Yesterday  it  was  as  if  pumping  on  me,  and  Dirty  Swift  (the  Scots- 
brig  pony)  and  I,  under  the  mackintosh,  were  equal  or  sujjerior 
to  the  Trafalgar  fountains  in  dramatic  effect.  But  the  silence,  the 
clearness  of  the  air  and  world,  the  poor  old  solitary  scene  too — all 
do  me  good  ;  and  if  I  had  an  Oberon  to  attend  me,  to  pick  a  fur- 
nished tent  from  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  blow  it  out  to  perfec- 
tion, I  should  be  tempted  to  linger  a  good  while  perhaps.  But 
nothing  of  that  is  the  arrangement  in  esse  here,  and  I  still  think 
of  Monday,  the  23d,  as  the  day  of  retuni.  At  any  rate  mark  that 
Jean  and  I  are  to  go  for  Dumfries  to-morrow ;  so  for  Saturday 
morning  do  you  aim  towards  Dumfries,  and  hit  me  like  a  good 
bairn. 

No  more,  except  my  blessing  and  adieu. 


264  Carhjle^S  Life   In   Lvndun. 

One  more  letter  lie  was  to  write  to  hei*,  wliicli  he  was 
to  find  on  his  table  in  London,  with  the  seal  unbroken,  and 
which  stands  endorsed  by  him,  'never  read.  Alas!  alas!' 
The  presentiment  of  evil  which  it  contains  mav  have  been 
natural,  for  the  post  had  again  brought  him  nothing  from 
her  ;  but  it  deserves  to  be  noticed. 

Scotsbrig  :  April  20. 
I  had  said,  it  is  nothing,  this  silence  of  hers ;  but  about  1  a.m., 
soon  after  going  to  bed,  my  first  operation  was  a  kind  of  dream  ; 
an  actual  introduction  to  the  sight  of  you  in  bitterly  bad  circum- 
stances, and  I  started  broad  awake  with  the  thought,  '  This  was 
her  silence,  then,  poor  soul ! '  Send  better  news,  and  don't  re- 
duce me  to  dream.  Adieu,  dearest.  Send  better  news,  clearer 
any  way.  What  a  party  is  that  of  Saturday  evening — unexampled 
in  modern  society,  or  nearly  so.     My  regards  to  Froude. 

Your  ever  affectionate 

T.  Caelyle. 

This  was  the  last  letter  he  ever  wrote  to  her,  and  the 
last  word  in  it  was  my  own  name.  The  '  party  '  spoken 
of  will  be  explained  immediately. 

Anxietyabout  the  speech  and  its  concomitants  had,  as 
Mrs.  Carlyle  expressed  it,  '  tattered  her  to  fiddlestrings.' 
The  sudden  relief,  when  it  was  over,  was  scarcely  less  try- 
ing. She  had  visitors  to  see,  who  came  with  their  con- 
gratulations. She  had  endless  letters  to  receive  and  answer. 
To  escape  from  part  of  this  she  had  gone  to  Windsor,  to 
spend  two  days  with  her  friend  Mrs.  Oiiphant,  and  had 
greatly  enjoyed  her  visit.  On  coming  back  she  had  dined 
with  Lady  William  Russell,  in  Audle}-  Square,  and  had 
there  a  smart  passage  of  words  with  Mr.  Hayward,  on  tlie 
Jamaica  disturbances,  the  news  of  which,  and  of  Governor 
Eyre's  action,  had  just  arrived.  The  chief  subject  of  con- 
versation everywhere  was  her  husband's  address,  and  of 
this  there  was  nothing  said  but  good.  Tyndall  came  back. 
She  saw  him,  heard  all  particulars  from  him,  and  was 
made  perfectly  happy  about  it.     Carlyle  himself  would 


Intended  Tea  Party  in  Cheyne  Row,  265 

be  home  in  a  day  or  two.  For  Saturday  the  2l8t,  pur- 
posely that  it  might  be  got  over  before  his  arrival,  she  had 
invited  a  small  party  to  tea. 

Principal  Tulloch  and  his  wife  were  in  London  ;  they 
wished  to  meet  me  or  else  I  to  meet  them.  I  forget  which 
it  was.  I  hope  the  desire  was  mutual.  I,  the  Tulloch  , 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Spottiswoode,  and  Mrs.  Oliphant  were  to 
be  Mrs.  Carlyle's  guests  in  Cheyne  Row  that  evening. 
Geraldine  Jewsbury,  who  was  then  living  in  Markham 
Square,  was  to  assist  in  entertaining  us.  That  morn- 
ing Mi-8.  Carlyle  wrote  her  daily  letter  to  Carlyle,  and 
took  it  herself  to  the  post.  In  the  afternoon  she  went  out 
in  her  brougham  for  the  usual  drive  round  Hyde  Park, 
taking  her  little  dog  with  her.  Nero  lay  under  a  stone  in 
the  garden  at  Cheyne  Row,  but  she  loved  all  kinds  of  ani- 
mals, dogs  especially,  and  had  found  another  to  succeed 
him.  Near  Victoria  Gate  she  had  put  the  dog  out  to  run. 
A  passing  carriage  went  over  its  foot,  and,  more  frightened 
than  hurt,  it  lay  on  the  road  on  its  back  crying.  She 
sprang  out,  caught  the  dog  in  her  arms,  took  it  with  her 
into  the  brougham,  and  was  never  more  seen  alive.  The 
coachman  went  twice  round  the  drive,  by  Marble  Arch 
down  to  Stanhope  Gate,  along  the  Serpentine  and  round 
again.  Coming  a  second  time  near  to  the  Achilles  statue, 
and  surprised  to  receive  no  directions,  he  turned  round, 
saw  indistinctly  that  something  was  wrong,  and  asked  a 
gentleman  near  to  look  into  the  carriage.  The  gentleman 
told  him  briefly  to  take  the  lady  to  St.  George's  Hospital, 
which  was  not  200  yards  distant.  She  was  sitting  with 
her  hands  folded  on  her  lap  dead. 

I  had  stayed  at  home  that  day,  busy  with  something, 
before  going  out  in  the  evening.  A  servant  came  to  the 
door,  sent  by  the  housekeeper  at  Cheyne  Row,  to  say  that 
something  had  happened  to  Mrs.  Carlyle,  and  to  beg  me 
to  go  at  once  to  St.  George's.     Instinct  told  me  wliat  it 


266  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

must  be.  I  went  on  the  way  to  Geraldine  ;  she  was  get- 
ting ready  for  the  party,  and  supposed  that  I  had  called  to 
take  her  there.  I  told  her  the  message  which  I  had  re- 
ceived. She  flung  a  cloak  about  her,  and  we  drove  to  the 
hospital  together.  There,  on  a  bed  in  a  small  room,  we 
found  Mrs.  Carlyle,  beautifully  dressed,  dressed  as  she 
always  was,  in  quietly  perfect  taste.  Nothing  had  been 
touched.  Her  bonnet  had  not  been  taken  oif.  It  was  as 
if  she  had  sate  upon  the  bed  after  leaving  the  brougham, 
and  had  fallen  back  upon  it  asleep.  But  there  was  an 
expression  on  her  face  which  was  not  sleep,  and  which, 
long  as  I  had  known  her,  resembled  nothing  which  I  had 
ever  seen  there.  The  forehead,  which  had  been  contracted 
in  life  by  continued  pain,  had  spread  out  to  its  natural 
breadth,  and  I  saw  for  the  first  time  how  magnificent  it 
was.  The  brilliant  mockery,  the  sad  softness  with  which 
the  mockery  alternated,  both  were  alike  gone.  The  feat- 
ures lay  composed  in  a  stern  majestic  calm.  I  have  seen 
many  faces  beautiful  in  death,  but  never  any  so  grand  as 
hers.  I  can  write  no  more  of  it.  I  did  not  then  know 
all  her  history.  I  knew  only  how  she  had  suffered,  and 
how  heroically  she  had  borne  it.  Geraldine  knew  every- 
thing. Mrs.  Carlyle,  in  her  own  journal,  calls  Geraldine 
her  ConsuelOy  her  chosen  comforter.  She  could  not  speak. 
I  took  her  home.  I  hurried  down  to  Cheyne  Kow,  where 
I  found  Forster  half-distracted,  yet,  with  his  vigorous 
sense,  alive  to  what  must  immediately  be  done.  Mr. 
Blunt,  the  Hector  of  Chelsea,  was  also  there  ;  he,  too, 
dreadfully  shaken,  but  collected  and  considerate.  Two 
points  had  immediately  to  be  considered :  how  to  com- 
municate the  news  to  Carlyle ;  and  how  to  prevent  an  in- 
quest and  an  examination  of  the  body,  which  Forster  said 
would  kill  him.  Forster  undertook  the  last.  He  was  a 
lunacy  commissioner,  and  had  weight  with  official  persons. 
Dr.  Quain  had  attended  Mrs.  Carlyle  in  her  illness,  and 


Death  of  Mrs,  Carlyle.  267 

from  him  I  believe  Forster  obtained  a  certificate  of  tljc 
probable  cause  of  the  death,  which  was  received  as  suffi- 
cient. As  to  Carlyle,  we  did  not  know  precisely  where  he 
was,  whetlier  at  Dumfries  or  Scotsbrig.  In  the  uncer- 
tainty a  telegram  was  sent  to  John  Carlyle  at  Edinburgh, 
another  to  Dr.  John  Brown,  should  John  Carlyle  be  ab- 
sent. By  them  the  news  was  forwarded  the  same  night 
to  Dumfries;  to  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Aitkcn,  with  whom 
he  was  staying,  to  be  communicated  according  to  Mr.  Ait- 
ken's  discretion. 

And  now  I  go  on  with  Carlyle's  own  narrative  written 
a  fortnight  after. 

Saturday  night,  about  9  p.m.,  I  was  sitting  in  sister  Jean's  at 
Dumfries,  thinking  of  my  railway  journey  to  Chelsea  on  Monday, 
and  perhaps  of  a  sprained  ankle  I  had  got  at  Scotsbrig  two  weeks 
or  so  before,  when  the  fatal  telegrams,  two  of  them  in  succession, 
came.  It  had  a  kind  of  stunning  effect  upon  me.  Not  for  above 
two  days  could  I  estimate  the  immeasurable  depths  of  it,  or  the 
infinite  sorrow  which  had  peeled  my  life  all  bai*e,  and  in  a  moment 
shattered  my  poor  world  to  universal  ruin.  They  took  me  out 
next  day  to  wander,  as  was  medically  needful,  in  the  green  sunny 
sabbath  fields,  and  ever  and  anon  there  rose  from  my  sick  heart 
the  ejaculation,  *  My  poor  little  woman  ! '  but  no  full  gust  of  tears 
came  to  my  relief,  nor  has  yet  come.  Will  it  ever?  A  stony 
Woe's  me,  woe's  me  !  sometimes  with  infinite  tenderness  and  pity, 
not  for  myself,  is  my  liabitual  mood  hitherto.  I  had  been  hitch- 
ing lamely  about,  my  company  the  green  solitudes  and  fresh  spring 
breezes,  quietly  but  far  from  happily,  about  the  hour  she  died. 

Sixteen  hours  after  the  telegram,  Sunday,  about  2  p.m.,  there 
came  to  me  a  letter  from  her,  written  on  Saturday,  before  going 
out,  the  cheeriest  and  merriest  of  all  her  several  prior  ones.  A 
note  for  her,  written  at  Scotsbrig  Friday  morning,  and  which 
should  have  been  a  pleasure  to  her  at  breakfast  that  morning,  was 
not  put  in  till  after  6  a.m.  at  Ecclefechan,  negligence  excusable 
but  unforgetable ;  had  not  left  Ecclefechan  till  10  p.m.,  nor  ar- 
rived till  2  p.m.,  and  lay  unopened. 

Monday  morning,  John  set  off  with  me  for  London.  Never,  for 
1,000  years,  should  I  forget  that  arrival  here  of  ours,  my  first  un- 


268  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

welcomed  by  her.  She  lay  in  her  coffin,  lovely  in  death.  Pale 
death,  and  things  not  mine  or  ours,  had  possession  of  onr  poor 
darling.  Very  kind,  very  helpful  to  me^  if  to  no  other,  everybody 
was  ;  for  I  learnt  ultimately,  had  it  not  been  for  John  Forster  and 
Dr.  Quain,  and  everybody's  mercy  to  me,  there  must  have  been, 
by  rule,  a  coroner's  inquest  held,  which  would  have  been  a  blotch 
upon  my  memory,  intolerable  then,  and  discordantly  ugly  for  all 
time  coming.  It  is  to  Forster's  unwearied  and  invincible  efforts 
that  I  am  indebted  for  escape  from  this  sad  defilement  of  my  feel- 
ings. Indeed,  his  kindness  then  and  all  through,  in  every  partic- 
ular and  detail,  was  taicxampled,  of  a  cordiality  and  assiduity 
almost  painful  to  me.  Thanks  to  him,  and  perpetual  recollection. 
Next  day  wander  over  the  fatal  localities  in  Hyde  Park,  Forster 
and  brother  John  settling,  apart  from  me,  everything  for  the  mor- 
row. Mon-ow,  Wednesday  morning,  we  were  under  way  with  our 
sacred  burden.  John  and  F.  kindly  did  not  speak  to  me.  Good 
Twistleton  was  in  the  train  without  consulting  me.  I  looked  out 
upon  the  spring  fields,  the  everlasting  skies  in  silence,  and  had 
for  most  part  a  more  endurable  day  till  Haddington,  where  friends 
were  waiting  with  hospitalities,  which  almost  drove  me  openly 
wild.  I  went  out  to  walk  in  the  moonlit  silent  streets,  not  suffered 
to  go  alone.  I  looked  up  at  the  windows  of  the  old  room,  where  I 
had  first  seen  her,  on  a  summer  evening  after  sunset,  six  and  forty 
years  ago.  Edward  Irving  had  brought  me  out  walking  to  Had- 
dington, she  the  first  thing  I  had  to  see  then ;  the  beautifuUest 
young  creature  I  had  ever  beheld,  sparkling  with  grace  and  talent, 
though  sunk  in  sorrow '  and  speaking  little.  I  noticed  her  once 
looking  at  me.     Oh  heavens,  to  think  of  that  now ! 

The  Dodds,^  excellent  people,  in  their  honest,  homely  way,  had 
great  pity  for  me,  patience  with  me.  I  retired  to  my  room,  slept 
none  all  night,  little  sleep  to  me  since  that  telegram  night,  but  lay 
silent  in  the  great  silence.  Thursday,  April  26,  wandered  out  into 
the  churchyard,  &c.,  at  1  p.m.  came  the  funeral,  silent,  small,  only 
twelve  old  friends  and  two  volunteers  besides  us  there.  Veiy 
beautiful  and  noble  to  me,  and  I  laid  her  in  the  grave  of  her 
father,  according  to  covenant  of  40  years  back,  and  all  was  ended. 
In  the  nave  of  the  old  Abbey  Kirk,  long  a  ruin,  now  being  saved 
from  further  decay,  with  the  skies  looking  down  on  her,  there 

'  She  had  lately  lost  her  father. 

^  Old  friends  of  the  Welshes,  at  whose  house  he  was  received  at  Hadding- 
ton. 


Death  of  Mrs,  Carlyle.  269 

Bleeps  my  little  Jeannie,  and  the  light  of  her  face  will  never  shine 
on  me  more. 

We  withdrew  that  afternoon  ;  posted  np  by  Edinburgh,  with  it« 
many  confuKions,  towards  London  all  night ;  and  about  10  or  11 
a.m.  were  shovelled  out  here,  where  I  am  hitching  and  wandering 
about ;  best  off  in  strict  solitude — were  it  only  possible — my  own 
solace  and  employment  that  of  doing  all  which  I  could  imagine 
she  would  have  liked  me  to  do.  .  .  .  The  first  awakening  in 
the  morning,  the  reality  of  all,  stripped  so  hare  before  me,  is  the 
ghastliest  half-hour  of  the  day.  A  kind  of  leaden  weight  of  sorrow 
has  come  over  all  my  universe,  with  sliarp  poignancy  of  memory 
every  now  and  then.  I  cannot  weep ;  no  relief  yet,  or  almost 
none — of  tears.  God  enable  me  to  live  out  my  poor  remnant  of 
days  in  a  manner  she  would  have  applauded.  Hers — as  known  to 
me  only — were  all  veiy  noble,  a  life  of  liidden  beauty,  all  given  to 
me  as  part  of  my  own.  How  had  I  deserved  it  ?  I,  unworthy  ! 
Beautiful,  exceedingly  I  Oh,  how  mournfully  beautiful  now !  I 
called  her  and  thought  her  my  Schiitzen  ;  but  my  word  was  shal- 
low as  compared  to  the  fact,  and  I  never  thought  of  losing  her. 
Vaguely,  always,  I  reckoned  that  I  as  the  elder  should  be  the  first, 
such  a  vivacity  and  brightness  of  life  I  noticed  in  her,  in  spite  of 
her  perpetual  burden  of  infirmities  and  sufferings  day  by  day. 
Twice,  perhaps  thrice,  during  her  honible  illness  of  1864,  the 
thought  rose  in  me,  ghastly  and  terrible,  that  I  was  about  to  lose 
her ;  but  always  my  hope  soon  revived  into  a  strange  kind  of  con- 
fidence ;  and  very  rarely  was  my  work  interrupted,  but  went  on 
steadily  up  in  the  garret,  as  the  one  thing  salvatory  to  both  of  us. 
And  oh,  her  looks  as  she  sate  in  the  balcony  at  St.  Leonards ! 
Never,  never  shall  I  forget  that  tenderness  of  love,  and  that  depth 
as  of  misery  and  despair. 

In  these  days,  with  mournfnl  pleasure,  Carlyle  com- 
posed the  beautiful  epitaph  which  is  printed  in  the  *  Let- 
ters and  Memorials,' '  *  a  word,'  he  said,  *  true  at  least,  and 
coming  from  his  heart,  which  felt  a  momentary  solace 
from  it.'  A  few  letters,  too,  he  wrote  on  the  subject,  two 
especially  to  Mr.  Erskine,  one  while  the  wound  was 
freshly  bleedirlg,  another  a  few  months  after,  which  I  give 
together ; — 

>  Vol.  ii.  p.  393. 


270  Carlyys  Life  in  London, 

To  Thomas  Ershine,  Esq, 

Chelsea  :  May  1,  1866. 

Dear  Mr.  Erskine, — Your  little  word  of  sympathy  went  to  my 
heart,  as  few  of  the  many  others  could  do.  Thanks  for  it.  Thanks 
also,  and  many  of  them,  for  your  visit  to  poor  Betty,  ^  to  whom  I 
have  yet  written  nothing,  though  well  aware  that  of  all  liviiif^; 
hearts  but  one,  hers  is  the  saddest  on  this  occasion.  Pray  go  oui 
to  her  again  after  a  time,  and  say  that  so  long  as  I  live  in  the  world, 
I  wish  and  propose  to  keep  sight  of  her,  and  in  any  distress  that 
may  fall  on  her,  to  ask  myself  what  I  can  do  to  be  of  help  to  that 
good  soul. 

Hitherto  I  write  to  nobody,  see  nobody  but  my  brother  and  Mag- 
gie "Welsh,  of  Auchtertool.  Indeed,  I  find  it  is  best  when  I  do 
not  even  speak  to  anybody.  The  stroke  that  has  fallen  on  me  is 
immeasurable,  and  has  shattered  in  pieces  my  whole  existence, 
which  now  suddenly  lies  all  in  ruins  round  me.  In  her  name, 
whom  I  have  lost,  I  must  try  to  repair  it,  rebuild  it  into  some- 
thing of  order  for  the  few  years  or  days  that  may  remain  to  me,  try 
not  to  waste  them  further,  but  to  do  something  useful  with  them, 
under  the  stern  monition  I  have  had.  If  I  but  can,  that  should  be 
my  way  of  honouring  her,  whose  histoiy  on  earth  now  lies  before 
me,  all  bathed  in  son'ow,  but  beautiful  exceedingly,  nay,  of  a  kind 
of  epic  grandeur  and  heroic  nobleness,  known  only  to  one  heart 
now.  God  bless  you,  dear  Mr.  Erskine.  You  will  not  forget  me, 
Mrs.  Stirling  and  you;  nor  will  I  either  of  you. 

Yours  sincerely, 

T.  Caelyle. 

Chelsea  :  October  27,  1866. 
Dear  Mr.  Erskine, — Your  word  of  remembrance  was  very  wel- 
come to  me,  and  has  gone  ringing  through  my  solitude  here  with  a 
gentle,  pleasant,  and  friendly  sound  ever  since.  I  have  had  many 
thoughts  since  I  last  saw  you,  silent  nearly  all,  and  mostly  beyond 
the  domain  of  words.  A  calamity  which  was  most  sudden,  which 
was  infinite  to  me,  and  for  which  there  is  no  remedy  conceivable, 
my  poor  little  home  in  this  world,  as  if  struck  by  lightning,  when 
I  least  expected  it,  and  shattered  all  into  ruin  ! — I  have  had 
enough  to  think  of,  to  mourn  over,  and  earnestly  consider  ;  taking 
counsel  of  the  Eternities  mainly,  and  of  such  stfll  voices  as  dwell 
there.  I  have  been  and  am  very  sad,  sad  as  death  I  may  well  say  ; 
»  Mrs.  Carlyle's  old  Haddington  nurse,  often  mentioned  in  her  letters. 


Death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle.  271 

but  not  miserable  either ;  nothing  of  the  mean  wretchedness  which 
has  defaced  other  long  portions  of  my  life.  This  is  all  noble,  ten- 
der, solemn  to  me.  I  might  define  it  as  a  time  of  divine  worship 
rather,  perhaps  the  only  j^eriod  of  real  worship  I  have  known  for  a 
great  while  past.  I  have  tried  considerably  to  be  busy,  too,  and 
am  still  trying.  Much  has  to  be  set  in  order,  and  rest  is  not  i^r- 
mitted  till  I  follow  wliither  she  has  gone  before  me.  May  my 
death,  which  stands  calmly  consolatory  in  my  sight  at  all  moments, 
be  beautiful  as  hers,  and  God's  will  be  done  now  and  forever. 

For  several  weeks  there  was  absolutely  no  speech  or  company. 
Now  there  is  occasionally  an  hour  of  rational  discourse,  which  is 
worth  something.  Vain,  idle  talk,  which  is  always  rife  enough,  I 
find  much  sadder  than  any  form  of  silence.  My  bodily  health  is 
not  worse,  perhaps  even  a  shade  better  than  what  you  last  saw  of 
it.  My  arrangements  for  the  winter  are  not  yet  fixed  ;  but  I  try 
to  keep  myself  in  what  I  fondly  call  work,  of  a  weak  kind,  fitted 
to  my  weakness.  That  is  my  anchor,  if  it  will  hold.  Adieu,  dear 
Mr.  Erskine  !  Here  has  F.  come  in  upon  me,  who  is  my  nearest 
neighbor  and  a  good  man.     I  must  say  farewell. 

Yours  ever, 

T.  Casltul 


CHAPTEE  XXIX. 

A.D.    1866.    MT.  71. 

Message  of  sympathy  from  the  Queen — John  Carlyle — Ketro- 
spects — A  future  life — Attempts  at  occupation — Miss  Daven- 
port Bromley — The  Eyre  Committee — Memories — Mentone — 
Stay  there  with  Lady  Ashburton — Entries  in  Journal. 

The  installation  at  Edinburgh  had  drawn  the  world's 
eyes  on  Carlyle.  His  address  had  been  in  everyone's 
hands,  had  been  admired  by  the  wise,  and  had  been  the 
fashion  of  the  moment  with  the  mnltitude.  The  death 
of  his  wife  following  immediately,  in  so  sudden  and  start- 
ling a  manner,  had  given  him  the  genuine  sympathy  of 
the  entire  nation.  His  enemies,  if  enemies  remained,  had 
been  respectfully  silent.  The  Queen  represented  her 
whole  subjects  and  the  whole  English-speaking  race  when 
she  conveyed  to  Cheyne  Row,  through  Lady  Augusta 
Stanley,  a  message  delicate,  graceful,  and  even  affection- 
ate. John  Carlyle  had  remained  there  after  the  return 
from  Haddington  to  London.  To  him  Lady  Augusta 
wrote,  at  her  Majesty's  desire,  and  I  will  not  injure  the 
effect  of  her  words  by  compressing  them. 

To  Dr.  Carlyle. 

Osborne  :  April  30,  1866. 
Dear  Dr.  Carlyle, — I  was  here  when  the  news  of  the  terrible 
calamity  with  which  your  brother  has  been  visited  reached  Her 
Majesty,  and  was  received  by  her  with  feelings  of  sympathy  and 
regret,  all  the  more  keen  from  the  lively  interest  with  which  the 
Queen  had  so  recently  followed  the  proceedings  in  Edinburgh- 


Death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle.  273 

Her  Majesty  expressed  a  wish  that,  as  soon  as  I  conid  do  so,  I 
should  convey  to  Mr.  Carlyle  the  exi)re88ion  of  these  feelings,  and 
the  assurance  of  her  sorrowful  understanding  of  a  grief  which  she 
herself,  alas !  knows  too  well. 

It  was  with  heartfelt  interest  that  the  Queen  heard  yesterday 
that  Mr.  Carlyle  had  been  able  to  make  the  effort  to  return  to  hi 
desolate  home,  and  that  you  are  with  him. 

Personally  Carlyle  was  unknown  to  the  Queen.  He  had 
never  been  presented,  had  never  sought  admission  within 
the  charmed  circle  which  surrounds  the  constitutional 
crow^n.  Perhaps,  in  reading  Lady  Augusta's  words,  he 
thought  more  of  the  sympathy  of  the  '  bereaved  widow ' 
than  of  the  notice  of  his  sovereign.     He  replied  : — 

Chelsea:  May  1,  1866. 
Dear  Lady  Augusta, — The  gracious  mark  of  Her  Majesty's 
sympathy  touches  me  with  many  feelings,  sad  and  yet  beautiful 
and  high.  Will  you  in  the  proper  manner,  with  my  humblest  re- 
spects, express  to  Her  Majesty  my  profound  sense  of  her  great 
goodness  to  me,  in  this  the  day  of  my  calamity.  I  can  vrnie  to 
nobody.  It  is  best  for  me  at  present  when  I  do  not  even  speak  to 
anybody. 

Believe  me  yours,  with  many  gi-ateful  regards, 

T.  Cablylb. 

What  he  was  to  do  next,  how  he  was  to  live  for  the 
future,  who  was  to  live  with  him  and  take  care  of  him, 
were  questions  which  his  friends  were  anxiously  asking 
among  themselves.  Circumstances,  nature,  everything 
seemed  to  point  to  his  brother  John  as  the  fittest  com- 
panion for  him.  From  early  years  John  had  been  the 
nearest  to  his  heart  of  all  his  brothers.  John  was  the 
correspondent  to  whom  he  wrote  with  the  most  absolute 
undisguise ;  f  i*om  whom  alone — and  this  was  the  highest 
proof  of  affection  which  he  could  give — he  had  once  been 
prepared  to  accept  help  in  money,  if  extremity  had  over- 
taken him.  After  a  good  many  years  of  experience  as  a 
family  physician,  after  some  fitful  independent  practice. 
Vol.  IV.-18 


274  Caflyle^s  Life  hi  London. 

Jolin  Carlyle  had  retired  from  his  profession  with  an  am- 
ple fortiire.  He  had  married,  but  had  been  left  a  child- 
less widower,  and  was  using  his  means  in  adding  to  the 
comfoi'ts  of  his  sisters'  families.  He  had  a  sound  intel- 
lect, which  he  had  diligently  cultivated.  He  was  a  fine 
Italian  scholar.  His  translation  of  Dante  was  of  admitted 
excellence.  In  face,  in  voice,  in  mind,  he  was  like  his 
brother.  Though  with  less  fire  and  capacity,  he  was  his 
equal  in  singleness  of  character,  essentially  true,  genuine, 
and  good — with  occasional  roughness  of  manner,  occasional 
heedlessness  of  other  people's  feelings — but  with  an  honest 
affectionateness,  with  an  admiration  and  even  adoration 
of  his  brother's  grander  qualities.  He,  of  all  others,  was 
the  one  who  was  best  qualified  to  relieve,  by  residing  there, 
'  the  gaunt  solitude  of  Cheyne  Eow.' 

Some  thoughts  of  the  kind,  as  will  be  seen,  had  been  in 
the  minds  of  both  of  them.  Meanwhile,  somewhere  about 
in  the  first  week  in  May,  Carlyle,  who  had  hitherto  de- 
sired to  be  left  alone,  sent  me  a  message  that  he  would 
like  to  see  me.  He  came  down  to  me  into,  the  library  in 
his  dressing  gown,  haggard  and  as  if  turned  to  stone.  He 
had  scarcely  slept,  he  said,  since  the  funeral.  He  could 
not  ^  cry.'  He  was  stunned  and  stupefied.  He  had  never 
realised  the  possibility  of  losing  her.  He  had  settled  that 
he  would  die  first,  and  now  she  was  gone.  From  this 
time  and  onwards,  as  long  as  he  was  in  town,  I  saw  him 
almost  daily.  He  was  looking  through  her  papers,  her 
notebooks  and  journals ;  and  old  scenes  came  mercilessly 
back  to  him  in  vistas  of  mournful  memory.  In  his  long 
sleepless  nights,  he  recognised  too  late  what  she  had  felt 
and  suffered  under  his  childish  irritabilities.  His  faults 
rose  up  in  remorseless  judgment,  and  as  he  had  thought 
too  little  of  them  before,  so  now  he  exaggerated  them  to 
himself  in  his  helpless  repentance.  For  such  faults  an 
atonement  was  due,  and  to  her  no  atonement  could  now 


Death  of  Mrs,  Carlyle.  275 

be  made.  He  remembered,  however,  Johnson's  penance 
at  Uttoxeter ;  not  once,  but  many  times,  lie  told  me  tliat 
.something  like  that  was  required  from  him,  if  he  could 
6ee  his  way  to  it.  *  Oh  I '  he  cried,  again  and  again,  '  if  I 
could  but  see  her  once  more,  were  it  but  for  five  minutes, 
to  let  her  know  that  I  always  loved  her  through  all  that. 
She  never  did  know  it,  never.'  'If  he  could  but  see  her 
again  I '  His  heart  seemed  breaking  as  he  said  it,  and 
through  these  weeks  and  months  he  was  often  mournfully 
reverting  to  the  subject,  and  speculating  whether  such 
future  meeting  might  be  looked  for  or  not.  He  would 
not  let  himself  be  deluded  by  emotion.  His  intellect  was 
vigorous  as  ever,  as  much  as  ever  on  its  guard  against 
superstition.  The  truth  about  the  matter  was,  he  admitted, 
absolutely  hidden  from  us ;  we  could  not  know,  we  were 
not  meant  to  know.  It  would  be  as  God  willed.  *  In  my 
Father's  house  are  many  mansions ! '  '  Yes,'  he  said,  *  if 
you  are  God,  you  may  have  a  right  to  say  so  ;  if  you  are 
man,  what  do  you  know  more  than  I  or  any  of  us  ? '  Yet 
then  and  afterwards  when  he  grew  calm,  and  was  in  full 
possession  of  himself,  he  spoke  always  of  a  life  to  come, 
and  the  meeting  of  friends  in  it  as  a  thing  not  impossible. 
In  spite  of  science  he  had  a  clear  conviction  that  every- 
thing in  this  universe,  to  the  smallest  detail,  was  ordered 
with  a  conscious  pui-pose.  Nothing  happened  to  any  man 
which  was  not  ordained  to  happen.  No  accident,  no  bullet 
on  battle-field,  or  sickness  at  home,  could  kill  a  man  till 
the  work  for  which  he  was  appointed  was  done,  and  if 
this  was  so,  we  were  free  to  hope  that  there  was  a  purpose 
in  our  individual  existence  which  was  not  exhausted  in 
our  earthly  condition.  The  spirit,  the  sonl  of  man,  was 
not  an  accident  or  mere  result  of  the  organisation  of  pro- 
toplasm. Intellect  and  moral  sense  were  not  put  into  man 
by  a  being  which  had  none  of  its  own.  At  no  time  of 
Carlyle'fi  life  had  such  a  conclusion  as  this  been  credible 


276  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

to  him.  Again  it  was  unlike  nature  so  to  waste  its  ener- 
gies as  to  spend  seventy  years  in  training  and  disciplining  a 
character,  and  to  fling  it  away  when  complete,  as  a  child 
flings  away  a  plaything.  It  is  possible  that  his  present 
and  anguished  longing  lent  more  weight  to  these  argu- 
ments than  he  would  otherwise  have  been  able  to  allow 
them.  At  any  rate  it  was  round  this  hope  and  round  his 
own  recollections  and  remorse  that  our  conversations 
chiefly  turned  when  we  took  up  our  walks  again  ;  the 
walks  themselves  tending  usually  to  the  spot  where  Mrs. 
Carlyle  was  last  seen  alive ;  where,  in  rain  or  sunshine, 
he  reverently  bared  his  head. 

By  degrees  he  roused  himself,  as  he  said  in  his  letters 
to  Erskirie,  to  think  of  trying  some  work  again.  He  could 
still  do  something.  Politics,  philosophy,  literature,  were 
rushing  on  faster  than  ever  in  the  direction  which  he  most 
disliked.  He  sketched  a  scheme  for  a  journal  in  which 
there  was  to  be  a  running  fire  of  opposition  to  all  that.  I 
and  Ruskin  w^ere  to  contribute,  and  it  might  have  come  to 
something  if  all  three  of  us  had  been  willing,  which  it 
appears  we  were  not.  In  a  note  of  the  2nd  of  August, 
this  year,  he  says  to  me  : — 

Has  Euskin  yet  written  to  you  on  that  periodical  we,  or  at  least 
I,  were  talking  of  ?  I  did  not  find  him  bite  very  ardently  on  my 
first  or  on  this  second  mention  of  the  project ;  nor  do  I  know 
what  you  can  well  answer  him  ;  nor  am  I  to  be  much  or  perhaps 
at  all  considered  in  it.  I !  alas  !  alas  !  but  the  thing  will  have  to 
be  done  one  day,  I  am  well  of  opinion  ;  though  by  whom  or  how, 
which  of  us  can  say  ? 

John  Carlyle  stayed  on  in  Cheyne  Eow,  with  no  fixed 
arrangement,  but  as  an  experiment  to  see  how  it  would 
answer.  We  all  hoped  it  might  continue ;  but  struck 
down  as  Carlyle  had  been  he  was  still  himself,  and  his 
self-knowledge  made  him  amusingly  cautious.  John, 
good-natured  though  he  might  be,  had  his  own  ways  and 


AUernpta  at  Occupation.  277 

humours,  and  his  own  plainness  of  speech ;  and  to  live 
easily  with  Oarlyle  required  that  one  must  be  prepared  to 
take  stormy  weather  when  it  came  in  silence,  lie  would 
be  penitent  afterwards ;  he  knew  his  brother's  merits  and 
his  own  faults.  *  Your  readiness,'  he  said,  'and  eagerness 
at  all  times  to  be  of  help  to  me,  you  may  depend  upon  it 
is  a  thing  I  am  always  well  aware  of,  at  the  bottom  of  all 
my  impatiences  and  discontents.'  But  the  impatiences 
and  discontents  were  there,  and  had  to  be  calculated  upon. 
John  was  willing  to  go  on,  and  Carlyle  did  not  absolutely 
refuse,  but  both,  after  some  months'  trial,  doubted  if  the 
plan  would  answer. 

I  felt  (Carlyle  wrote  to  him,  during  a  short  sepai'ation)  that  in 
the  practical  substance  of  the  thing  you  are  probably  right. 
Noises  are  not  the  rock  it  need  split  on.  Eveiything  might  be 
I)eaceably  deafened,  if  that  were  all ;  but  it  is  certain  you  and  I 
have  given  one  another  considerable  annoyance,  and  have  never 
yet  been  able  to  do  together.  That  is  the  nature  of  the  two  beasts. 
They  cannot  change  that,  and  ought  to  consider  it  well  in  their 
eagerness  to  be  near  one  another,  and  get  the  benefit  of  mutual 
affection,  now  that  each  of  them,  one  of  them  above  all,  needs  it 
more  and  more.  I  must  see,  I  must  see  ;  and  you  too,  if  you  are 
still  upon  this  project,  you  will  consider  all  things,  weigh  them 
with  the  utmost  cliearness  you  have,  and  gradually  come  to  some 
decision  which  the  facts  will  correspond  to.  The  facts  will  be 
very  rigid  when  we  try  them. 

The  wish  to  live  together  was  evidently  more  on  John's 
part  than  on  Carlyle's.  Carlyle  was  perhaps  right.  The 
*  two  beasts'  were  both  too  old  to  change  their  natures,  and 
they  would  agree  best  if  they  did  not  see  each  other  too 
often.  John  went  back  to  Scotland ;  Carlyle  was  left 
alone:  and  other  friends  now  claimed  the  privilege  of 
being  of  use  to  him,  especially  Miss  Davenport  Bromley, 
the  *  flight  of  sky  larks,'  and  Lady  Ashburton.  They 
had  been  both  /ler  friends  also,  and  were,  therefore,  in  his 
present  mood,  especially  dear  to  him.     Miss  Bromley  was 


278  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

then  living  at  Ripple  Court,  near  Walmer.  She  invited 
Carljle  to  stay  with  her.  He  went  in  the  middle  of 
August,  and  relates  his  visit  in  his  journal. 

Journal. 

Ripple  Court)  August  15,  1866. — Arrived  here  the  day  before 
yesterday — beautiful  sunny  day  in  the  midst  of  wet  and  windy 
ones.  Sohtude  and  green  country,  spotted  with  autumn  colours, 
and  labours,  mournfully  welcome  to  me  after  the  dreary  sadness 
and  unwelcome  interruptions  to  my  poor  labours  at  Chelsea  which, 
alas  !  were  nothing  more  than  the  sorting,  labelling,  and  tying  up 
in  bundles  all  that  is  now  left  me  of  her  that  is  gone.  Was  in  this 
country  once,  now  42  years  ago,  and  remember  a  Sunday  of  wan- 
dering between  Dover  and  here  with  Edward  Irving  and  Mr. 
Strachey.  What  a  flight  of  time  /  My  project  here  was  14  days 
of  solitude  and  sea-bathing.  Hitherto,  except  a  very  long  sleep, 
not  of  the  healthiest,  last  night,  almost  all  has  gone  rather  awry 
with  me. 

August  16. — Had  a  beautiful  ride  yesterday,  a  tolerable  bathe, 
plenty  of  walking,  driving,  &c.,  and  imagined  I  was  considerably 
improving  myself  ;  but,  alas  !  in  the  evening  came  the  G.'s,  and  a 
dinner  amounting  to  total  wreck  of  sleep  to  me.  Got  up  at  3  a.m., 
sate  reading  till  6,  and  except  a  ride,  good  enough  in  it  itself,  but 
far  from  *  pleasant '  in  my  state  of  nerves  and  heart,  have  had  a 
day  of  desolate  misery,  the  harder  to  bear  as  it  is  useless  too,  and 
results  from  a  visit  which  I  could  have  avoided  had  I  been  skilful. 
Oh,  my  lost  one!  oh,  my  lost  one!  irrecoverable  to  my  lonely 
heart  for  ever. 

'  Miss  Bromley's  hospitality  and  genuine  beautifully 
simple  politeness  and  kindness  were  beyond  all  praise,'  he 
said  when  his  visit  was  over.  But  the  time  at  Bipple 
Court  had  been  spent,  '  as  in  Hades,'  the  general  com- 
plexion of  his  thoughts,  and  he  was  glad  to  get  back  to 
his  '  gloomy  dwelling.'  The  Hades,  in  fact,  was  in  him- 
self, and  was  therefore  everywhere.  The  hopgardens  and 
woods  had  given  him  a  faint  pleasure  on  his  way  up 
through  Kent  on  the  railway.  '  After  Sydenham  it  be- 
came unspeakable,  abominable,  a  place  fitter  for  demons  and 


Ifmtaiion  to  MenUme,  279 

enchanted  swine  than  for  human  creatures  of  an  ordinary 
type.'  On  reaching  home  he  wrote  a  grateful  letter  to  his 
hostess,  *  whose  goodness  to  him  he  would  never  forget.' 
*  My  home,'  he  said,  '  is  very  gaunt  and  lonesome ;  but 
8uch  is  my  allotment  henceforth  in  this  world.  1  have 
taken  loyally  to  my  vacant  circumstances,  and  will  try  to 
do  my  best  with  them.' 

Another  invitation  was  awaiting  him.  Lady  Ashburton 
had  taken  a  house  at  Mentone,  and  pressed  him  to  spend 
the  winter  months  with  her  there.  She  asked  Miss 
Welsh  to  accompany  him,  '  to  screen  him,  and  pad  every- 
thing into  softness  in  the  new  scene.'  She  was  so  Nvarm, 
so  eager  in  her  offers,  showed  so  clearly  that  his  consent 
would  be  rather  for  her  pleasure  than  his  own,  that  he  re- 
sisted his  natural  impulse  to  refuse  on  the  spot.  He  let 
his  decision  wait  till  he  had  disposed  of  a  matter  which  had 
become  immediately  pressing. 

The  affair  of  Governor  Eyre  had  blown  into  white  heat. 
In  submission  to  general  clamour  Eyre  had  been  recalled 
in  disgrace.  He  had  applied  for  other  employment  and  had 
been  refused.  He  had  several  children,  and  was  irretriev- 
ably ruined.  It  was,  Carlyle  said  to  me,  as  if  a  ship  had 
been  on  fire ;  the  captain,  by  immediate  and  bold  exer- 
tion, had  put  the  fire  out,  and  had  been  called  to  account 
for  having  flung  a  bucket  or  two  of  water  into  the  hold 
beyond  what  was  necessary.  He  had  damaged  some  of  the 
cargo,  perhaps,  but  he  had  saved  the  ship.  The  action 
of  the  Government,  in  Carlyle's  opinion,  was  base  and  un- 
generons,  and  when  the  recall  was  not  sufficient,  but  Eyre 
was  threatened  with  prosecution,  beaten  as  he  himself 
was  to  the  ground,  he  took  weapon  in  hand  again,  and 
stood  forward,  with  such  feeble  support  as  he  could  find 
for  an  unpopular  cause,  in  defence  of  a  grossly  injured 
man. 


280  Caiiyle^s  Life  in  London, 

To  Miss  Davenport  Bromley. 

Chelsea :  August  30,  1866. 
Yesterday,  in  spite  of  the  rain,  I  got  up  to  the  Eyre  Committee, 
and  even  let  myself  be  voted  into  the  chair,  such  being  the  post 
of  danger  on  the  occasion,  and  truly  something  of  a  forlorn  hope, 
and  place  for  enfans  perdus.  We  seemed,  so  far  as  I  can  measure, 
to  be  a  most  feeble  committee  ;  a  military  captain,  a  naval  ditto, 
a  young  city  merchant,  Henry  Kingsley,  Charles  still  hanging 
back  afraid,  old  S.  O.  Hall  of  the  Art  Union,  a  well-meaning  man  ; 
only  these,  with  a  secretary  who  had  bright  swift  eyes,  but  showed 
little  knowledge  of  his  element.  ...  In  short,  contrary  to 
all  hope,  I  had  to  set  my  own  shoulders  to  the  wheel,  and  if  it 
made  any  progress  at  all,  which  I  hope  it  did,  especially  in  that 
of  trying  for  an  infinitely  better  committee,  the  probable  chief  cause 
was  that  my  old  coat  is  not  afraid  of  a  little  mud  on  the  sleeve  of 
it,  as  superfiner  ones  might  be.  Poor  Eyre  !  I  am  heartily  sorry 
for  him,  and  for  the  English  nation,  which  makes  such  a  dismal 
fool  of  itself.  Eyre,  it  seems,  has  fallen  suddenly  from  6,000/.  a 
year  into  almost  zero,  and  has  a  large  family  and  needy  kindred 
dependent  on  him.  Such  his  reward  for  saving  the  West  Indies, 
and  hanging  one  incendiary  mulatto,  well  worth  the  gallows,  if  I 
can  judge. 

I  was  myself  one  of  the  cowards.  I  pleaded  that  I  did 
not  understand  the  matter,  that  I  was  editor  of  '  Fraser,' 
and  sliould  disturb  the  proprietors  ;  mere  paltry  excuses  to 
escape  doing  what  I  knew  to  be  right.  Ruskin  was  braver 
far,  and  spoke  out  like  a  man.  Carlyle  sent  Miss  Bromley 
a  copy  of  what  he  had  said. 

The  Eyre  Committee,  he  wrote  on  September  15,  is  going  on 
better,  indeed  is  now  getting  fairly  on  its  feet.  Buskin's  speech — 
now  don't  frown  upon  it,  but  read  it  again  till  you  understand  it 
— is  a  right  gallant  thrust  I  can  assure  you.  While  all  the  world 
stands  tremulous,  shilly-shallying  from  the  gutter,  impetuous 
Euskin  plunges  his  rapier  up  to  the  very  hilt  in  the  abominable 
belly  of  the  vast  blockheadism,  and  leaves  it  staring  very  consider- 
ably. 

The  monster,  alas !  was  an  enchanted  monster,  and  '  as 
the  air  invulnerable.'     Its  hour  had  not  come,  and  has  not 


The  Eyre  Committee,  281 

yet,  in  spite  of  Ruskiii's  rapier.  Carlyle  gave  his  money 
and  his  name,  but  he  was  in  no  condition  for  rough  strug- 
gling with  the  *  blatant  beast.'  lie  soon  saw  that  he  could 
make  no  impression  upon  the  Government,  and  that  Eyre 
was  in  no  personal  danger  from  the  prosecution.  lie 
wrote  a  few  words  to  one  of  the  newspapers,  expressing 
briefly  his  own  feeling  about  the  matter,  and  so  left  it. 

Journal 

September  26,  1866. — Eyre  Defence  Committee — small  letter  of 
mine — has  been  raging  through  all  the  new8pai>er8  of  the  empire, 
I  am  told ;  for  I  have  carefully  avoided  everything  pro  or  contra 
that  the  foolish  populace  of  scribblei*s  in  any  form  put  forth  upon 
it  or  me.  Indifferent  in  very  deed.  What  is  or  can  be  the  value 
to  any  rational  man  of  what  these  empty  insincere  fools  say  or 
think  on  the  subject  of  Eyre's  Jamaica  measures,  or  of  me  that 
approve  them.  Weather  veiy  wet.  Wettest  harvest  I  have  seen 
since  1816.  Country  very  base  and  mad,  so  far  as  I  survey  its 
proceedings.  Bright,  Beales,  Gladstone,  Mill,  and  Co. ,  bring  on 
the  suffrage  question,  kindling  up  the  slow  canaille  what  they  can. 
This,  and  *  Oh,  make  the  niggers  happy ! '  seem  to  be  the  two 
things  needful  with  these  sad  people.  Sometime  I  think  the  tug 
of  revolution  struggle  may  be  even  near  for  poor  England,  much 
nearer  than  I  once  judged — very  questionable  to  me  whether  Eng- 
land won't  go  quit«  to  siwish  under  it  (perhaps  better  that  it  do, 
having  reached  such  a  pitch  of  spiritual  heggari/)^  and  whether 
there  is  much  good  likelihood  that  England  can  ever  get  out  of 
such  Medea's  Caldron  again,  "made  new,"  and  not  rather  be  boiled 
to  slushy  rags  and  ended  ?  My  pleasure  or  hope  in  looking  at  the 
things  round  me,  or  talking  of  them  to  almost  any  person,  is  not 
great 

The  world  was  going  its  way,  and  not  Carlyle's.  Ho 
was  finding  a  morfe  congenial  occupation  for  himself,  in 
reviving  the  history  of  his  own  young  days,  of  the  life  at 
Ecclefechan  and  Mainhill,  with  the  old  scenes  and  the  old 
companions.  He  had  begun  *  languidly,'  as  he  said,  to  write 
the  *  Reminiscences  of  Edward  Irving,'  which  were  more 


282  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

about  himself  than  his  friend  ;  and  to  recall  and  write 
down  fragments  of  his  mother's  talk/ 

While  thus  employed,  he  did  not  encourage  visitors. 

Strange  [he  said]  how  little  good  any,  even  the  best  of  them  can 
do  me.  Best,  sad  best,  is  that  I  be  left  to  myself  and  my  sorrows. 
My  state  is  then  much  more  supportable  and  dignified.  My 
thoughts,  all  sad  as  death,  but  also  calm  and  high,  and  silent  as 
Eternity,  presided  over  by  her,  and  my  grief  for  her,  in  which  there 
is  something  of  devout  and  inexpressibly  tender — really  my  most 
appropriate  mood  in  the  condition  I  am  got  to.  Eemedy  must  be 
had  against  such  intrusions  of  the  impertinent  and  kind ;  but  how  ? 

A  note  in  the  '  Journal '  says  that  my  visits  and  Eus*- 
kin's  were  not  regarded  as  impertinent.  He  allowed  me 
to  see  as  much  of  him  as  I  liked.  He  did  not  tell  me 
what  he  was  doing,  but  talked  much  on  the  subject  of  it. 


1  One  of  these  fragments,  as  it  had  special  reference  to  himself,  besides 
being  curious  in  itself,  I  preserve  in  a  note. 

Journal. 
'■  September  26.— Ghyouw — a  name  my  mother  had  for  any  big  ill-shaped 
awkward  object — would  sometimes  call  me,  not  in  ill-humour,  half  in  good, 
"Thou  Ghyouw."  Some  months  ago  I  found,  with  great  interest,  that  in  old 
Icelandic  the  same  word— sound  the  same,  spelling  slightly  different— was, 
and  perhaps  is,  their  term  for  the  huge  volcanic  crack  or  chasm  that  borders 
their  old  Parliament-place  or  Thing  valla,  still  well  known.  My  mother,  bred 
not  in  a  country  of  chasms,  never  used  it  except  for  solid  bodies  ;  but  with 
her,  too,  it  completely  meant  a  thing  shapeless,  rude,  awkwardly  huge ;  the 
huger  the  fitter  for  its  name.  I  never  heard  the  word  from  any  other  mouth. 
Probably  now  there  is  no  other  Scotchman  alive  that  knows  the  existence  of 
it  in  his  mother  tongue — proof  positive,  nevertheless,  and  indisputable,  that 
the  Lowland  Scots  spoke  an  Icelandic  or  old  Norse  language  a  thousand 
or  thousands  of  years  ago.  My  mother"  s  natal  place  was  the  Water  of  Ae 
(little  farm  of  Whitestanes,  or  Hazelly  Bray  afterwards),  pleasant  pastoral 
green  hill  region  at  the  N.  W.  nook  of  Annandale,  just  before  Annandale,  reach- 
ing the  summit  of  the  watershed,  closes,  and  the  ground  drops  rapidly  down 
to  Closelinn,  Kil  Osbem,  and  is  Nithsdale,  which  you  can  still  see,  then  and 
long  afterwards,  was  a  part  of  Galloway,  most  of  the  names  in  it  still  Celtic  ; 
and  the  accent  of  the  wild  Scots  of  Galloway  rapidly,  almost  instantly,  ex- 
changing itself  for  that  of  the  Teutonic  Annandalers.  Perhaps  this  of  Giaou 
or  Ghyo^iw  is  written  down  somewhere  else  (nowhere  that  I  know  of. — J.  A. 
F.).  I  did  not  wish  it  forgotten,  being  now  sole  depositary  of  it— pretty  little 
fact — clear  and  dear  to  me. — T.  C 


Menione.  283 

He  often  said — the  wish  no  doubt  suggesting  tbe  expecta- 
tion— that  he  thought  his  own  end  was  near.  He  was 
endeavouring  to  preserve  the  most  precious  parts  of  his 
recollections,  before  they  and  lie  should  pass  away  together. 
The  Irving  memories  were  dear  to  him,  but  there  was 
something  else  that  was  still  dearer.  Putting  these  aside 
for  the  time,  he  set  himself  to  write  a  memoir  of  the 
beautiful  existence  which  had  gone  at  the  side  of  his  own, 
a  record  of  what  his  wife  had  been  to  him,  and  a  testi- 
mony of  his  own  appreciation.  At  their  first  acquaintance, 
it  was  she  who  was  to  make  a  name  in  literature,  and  he 
was  to  have  supported  and  stood  by  her.  It  was  a  conso- 
lation to  hi'm.  to  describe  the  nature  and  the  capabilities 
which  had  been  sacrificed  to  himself,  that  the  portrait  of 
her  might  still  survive.  He  was  not  writing  it  for  the 
world.  He  finished  it  just  before  he  went  abroad,  when 
he  was  expecting  that  in  all  probability  he  would  never 
see  England  again.  He  left  it  sealed  up,  with  directions 
to  those  into  whose  hands  it  might  fall,  that  it  was  not  to 
be  published,  no  one  being  capable  of  properly  editing  it 
after  he  should  be  gone. 

He  had  decided  that  he  would  try  Mentone.  Lady  Ash- 
hurton  had  entreated.  His  friends  believed  that  change 
would  be  good  for  him.  He  himself,  languid,  indifferent, 
but  having  nothing  of  special  consequence  to  retain  him 
in  England,  had  agreed  to  go.  Miss  Welsh  could  not  ac- 
company him.  He  was  not  equal  to  the  journey  alone. 
The  same  friend  who  had  taken  charge  of  him  to  Edin- 
burgh undertook  to  place  him  safely  under  Lady  Ash- 
burton's  roof,  an  act  of  respectful  attention  which  Carlyle 
never  foi*got,  *  So  chivalrous  it  was.*  For  Tyndall  was 
not  an  idle  gentleman,  with  time  on  his  hands.  He  had 
his  own  hard  work  to  attend  to  in  London,  and  would  be 
obliged  to  return  on  the  instant.  But  he  was  accustomed 
to  travelling.    He  was  as  good  a  courier  as  Keuberg,  and 


284  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

to  sacrifice  a  few  days  to  Carlyle  was  an  honour  and  a 
pleasure. 

They  started  on  the  22nd  of  December,  and  in  two 
days  were  transported  from  the  London  fogs  to  the  sunny 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Journal. 

Mentone,  January  20,  1867. — Am  actually  here ;  came  the  day 
before  Christmas,  Professor  Tyndall  triumphantly  bringing  me. 
The  heroic  Tyndall  would  hear  ho  whisper  of  my  paying  his  ex- 
penses, though  hither  and  thither  they  must  have  exceeded  20/., 
and  he  came  purely  on  my  account.  Christmas  Day,  a  strange 
contrast  to  English  experience,  being  hot  and  bright,  the  gracious 
lady  took  us  all  on  asses  by  the  rugged  cliffs  and  sierras  to  a  village 
and  peak  called  St.  Agnes,  strangest  village  in  the  world,  with  a 
strange  old  castle,  perched  on  the  veiy  point  of  the  cliff,  where  we 
lunched  in  sight  of  the  population.  In  the  evening  we  dined  with 
Lady  Marion  Alford,  not  known  to  me  before,  but  elegant,  gifted, 
and  blandly  high  in  her  way,  who,  with  her  two  sons,  Lord  Brown- 
low  and  Mr.  Cust,  are  the  only  interesting  people  I  have  met  here. 
Tyndall  set  off  homeward  the  second  day  after. 

Thus  was  Carlyle  left  in  a  new  environment;  nothing 
save  the  face  of  his  hostess  not  utterly  strange  to  him, 
among  olive  groves  and  palms  and  oranges,  the  mountains 
rising  behind  into  the  eternal  snow,  and  the  sea  before  his 
windows — Llomer's  violet  sea  at  last  under  his  eyes.  Here 
he  got  his  papers  about  him.  Lady  Ash  burton  left  him 
to  himself.  He  went  on  with  his  Reminiscences,  and  in 
the  intervals  wandered  as  he  pleased.  Everyone  feels 
well  on  first  reaching  the  Eiviera.  Carlyle  slept  soundly, 
discovered  '  real  improvement '  in  himself,  and  was  almost 
sorry  to  discover  it. 

My  poor  life  [the  '  Journal '  continues]  seems  as  good  as  over. 
I  have  no  heart  or  strength  of  hope  or  of  interest  for  further  work. 
Since  my  sad  loss  I  feel  lonesome  in  the  earth  (Oh,  how  lonesome  !) 
and  solitary  among  my  fellow-creatures.  The  loss  of  her  comes 
daily  home  to  me  as  the  irreparable,  as  the  loss  of  all ;  and  the 
heart  as  before  knows  its  own  sorrow,  if  no  other  ought  to  do  so. 


MerUone.  285 

Wliat  can  any  other  help,  even  if  he  wished  it  ?  .  .  .  I  have 
finished  Edward  Ii-ving's  Beminiscences,  and  yesterday  a  short 
paper  of  JeftVey's  ditto.  It  was  her  connection  with  them  that 
chiefly  impelled  me.  Botli  are  superficially,  ill,  and  iK)orly  done, 
especially  the  latter.  But  there  is  something  of  value  for  oneself 
in  re-awakening  the  sleep  of  the  past,  and  bringing  old  years  care- 
fully to  survey  by  one's  new  eyes.  A  certain  solemn  tenderness  too, 
in  these  two  cases,  dwells  in  it  for  me  ;  and,  in  fine,  doing  any- 
thing not  wicked  is  better  than  doing  nothing. 

Distinguished  visitors  called  in  passing  on  tlieir  way  to 
or  from  Italy  ;  among  otliers,  Mr.  Gladstone,  '  on  return- 
ing from  Rome  and  the  Man  of  Sin,'  '  intending  for  Paris, 
and  an  interview  with  M.  Fould.' 

Journal, 

Januaiy  23. — Gladstone,  en  route  homewards,  called  on  Monday, 
and  sate  a  long  time  talking,  principally  waiting  for  Madame  Bun- 
sen,  his  old  friend,  whom  it  was  his  one  chance  of  seeing,  as  he 
had  to  leave  for  Paris  the  next  day.  Talk  copious,  ingenious,  but 
of  no  worth  or  sincerity — pictui*es,  literature,  finance,  prosperities, 
greatness  of  outlook  for  Italy,  &c. — a  man  ponderous,  copious,  of 
evident  faculty,  but  all  gone  irrecoverably  into  House  of  CJommons 
shape — man  once  of  some  wisdom  or  possibility  of  it,  but  now 
possessed  by  the  Prince,  or  many  Princes,  of  the  Power  of  the 
Air.  Tragic  to  me  rather,  and  far  from  enviable  ;  from  whom 
one  felt  oneself  divided  by  abysmal  chasms  and  immeasurabilities. 
He  went  next  morning ;  but  it  seems,  by  the  journals,  will  find 
his  M.  Fould,  &c.,  suddenly  thrown  out  by  some  jerk  of  their  in- 
sciTitable  Ck)pper  Captain,  and  unable  to  do  the  honours  of  Paris 
in  the  way  they  wished. 

His  chief  pleasure  at  Mentone  was  in  long  walks  about 
the  neighbourhood.  lie  was  the  best  of  literary  landscape 
painters,  and  his  jonrnal,  with  his  letters  to  myself  and 
others,  are  full  of  exquisite  little  sketches,  like  the  pictures 
of  the.  old  masters,  where  you  liave  not  merely  a  natural 
scene  before  you,  but  the  soul  of  the  man  who  looks 
upon  it. 


286  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Journal. 

Mentone,  January  21. — I  went  out  yesterday,  walked  two  or 
three  miles  up  the  silent  valley ;  trifling  wet  of  mist,  which  hung 
in  shifting  scarfs  and  caps  all  about  among  the  peaks  of  the  ravine  ; 
beautiful  green  of  orange  woods  and  olive  woods  ;  here  and  there 
a  silent  olive  mill,  far  down  in  some  nook  at  the  bottom,  nothing 
but  its  idle  mill-race  and  the  voice  of  the  torrent  audible  ;  here 
and  there  a  melancholy  ill-kept  little  chapel,  locked,  I  suppose, 
but  its  two  windows  open  with  iron  stanchions,  inviting  the  faith- 
ful to  take  view  of  the  bits  of  idols  inside,  and  try  if  prayer  was 
possible.  Oh  ye  bewildered  and  bewildering  sons  of  men  !  There 
was  a  twitch  of  strange  pity  and  misery  that  shot  through  me  at 
the  thought  of  man's  lot  on  earth,  and  the  comparison  of  our  dumb 
Eternities  and  Immensities  with  this  poor  joss-house  and  bambino. 
I  might'have  had  reflection  enough,  for  there  reigned  everywhere 
the  most  perfect  Sabbath  stillness  ;  and  Nature  and  her  facts  lay 
round  me,  silently  going  their  long  road.  But  my  heart  was  heavy, 
my  bodily  case  all  warped  awry  ;  and  except  my  general  canopy  of 
sadness  and  regret,  very  vain  except  for  the  love  that  is  in  it,  re- 
gret for  the  inevitable  and  inexorable,  there  was  nothing  of  thought 
present  to  me. 

To  Miss  Davenport  Bromley. 

Mentone :  January  23. 

You  heard  of  my  safe  arrival  in  these  parts,  that  the  promises 
they  made  me  seemed  to  be  good.  I  am  lucky  to  add  that  the 
promise  has  been  kept  so  far  that,  outwardly  and  that  in  respect 
of  sleep,  &c.,  I  feel  as  if  rather  better  than  in  Chelsea ;  certainly 
not  worse.  Sometimes  for  moments  it  almost  seems  as  if  I  might 
perhaps  recognise  some  actual  vestige  of  better  health  in  these 
favoured  latitudes,  and  be  again  a  little  more  alive  than  of  late. 
But  that  is  only  for  moments.  In  what  is  called  '  spirits'  I  don't 
seem  to  improve  much,  or,  if  improvement  means  increase  of  buoy- 
ancy or  levity,  to  improve  at  all.  How  should  I  ?  In  these  wild 
silent  ravines  one's  thoughts  gravitate  towards  death  and  eternity 
with  more  proclivity  than  ever,  and  in  the  absence  of  serious  hu- 
man discourse,  go  back  to  the  vanished  past  as  the  one  profitable 
or  dignified  company.  There  has  been  no  glimpses  of  what  one 
would  call  bad  weather  ;  for  the  most  part  brilliant  sunshine, 
mixed  with  a  tingling  briskness  of  air. 

In  beauty  of  situation,  of  aspect  and  prospect  by  sea  and  land, 


MenUme.  287 

nothing  can  exceed  ns  in  the  world.  Mentone,  old  town  and  new, 
latter  perhaps  a  hundred  years  old,  former  several  thousands,  is 
built  principally  as  a  single  street  by  the  sea-shore,  along  the  diam* 
eter  of  two  beautiful  semicircular  little  hollows,  or  half-amphi- 
theatres, formed  by  the  mountains  which  are  the  airiest  wings  of 
rocky  peaks  and  clifiSs,  all  terraced  and  olive-clad,  with  sometimes 
an  old  castle  and  village.  Castle  visible  like  a  bird-cago  from  the 
shore  here,  six  miles  off.  I  never  saw  so  strangely  beautiful  a 
ring  of  peaks,  especially  this  western  one,  which  is  still  new  to  me 
every  morning  on  stepping  out.  Western  ring  and  eastern  form 
in  the  middle,  especially  form  at  each  end,  their  bits  of  capes  and 
promontories  and  projections  into  the  sea,  so  that  we  sit  in  the 
hollow  of  an  alcove,  and  no  wind  from  the  north  can  reach  us  at 
all ;  maritime  Alps  intercepting  all  frost  and  snow.  Mentone  prop- 
er, as  diameter  or  street  along  the  sea,  is  perhaps  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  long  ;  a  fair  street  of  solid  high  houses,  but  part  of  it 
paved  all  through  with  big  smooth  whinstones,  on  which  at  even- 
ing all  the  population  seem  to  gather ;  many  asses,  &c.,  passing 
home  with  their  burdens  from  the  mountains,  and  many  women, 
young  and  old  vrith  them,  and  thriftier,  quieter,  more  cheer- 
fully serious  and  innocent-looking  set  of  poor  people  you  never 
saw. 

Old  Mentone,  thousands  of  years  old  (for  there  are  caves  of  the 
troglodytes  still  extant  near  by),  sprawls  up  like  a  huge  herring- 
bone of  lanes,  steep  against  the  cliff — by  way  of  defence  against  the 
Saracens,  it  is  thought ;  at  some  distance  from  the  sea,  and  only 
hangs  by  New  Mentone  as  a  shoulder  or  fin  would.  Most  of  the 
poor  people  live  there.  There  also  in  her  fine  church,  the  Deipara 
misericordiarum  Mater,  so  called.  And  finally  the  ruins  of  an  old 
castle,  now  mostly  made  into  a  churchyard. 

English  travellers  went  and  came,  all  eager  to  have  a 
talk  with  Carlyle.  Lady  Marian  Alford  and  her  family 
were  a  real  acquisition  to  him  ;  shaded  over,  however,  un- 
fortunately, by  the  deatli  of  Lord  Browulow,  which  oc- 
curred while  he  was  at  Mentone.  Carlyle  often  spoke  to 
me  of  this  young  nobleman,  and  of  the  fine  promise  which 
he  had  observed  in  him.  His  own  spirits  varied  ;  declin- 
ing slightly  as  the  novelty  of  the  scene  wore  off.  To  Miss 
Jewsbury  he  gave  a  tolerable  account  of  himself. 


288  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

I  seem  to  be  doing  rather  well  here  [he  wrote],  seem  to  have  es- 
caped  a  most  hideous  winter  for  one  thing,  if  other  griefs  were  but  as 
easy  to  leave  behind.  The  weather,  ever  since  I  awoke  at  Marseilles, 
has  been  superb  ;  not  only  bright,  sunny,  and  not  wintry,  but  to 
my  feeling  more  agreeable  than  any  summer,  so  elastic,  diy,  and 
brisk  is  the  air,  an  atmosphere  in  which  you  can  take  exercise,  so 
pure  and  beautiful  are  all  the  elements.  Sun,  moon,  sky  and 
stars  have  not  yet  ceased  to  surprise  me  by  their  incredible  brill- 
iancy, about  ten  times  as  numerous,  these  stars,  as  yours.  The 
sceneries  all  around,  too,  these  wild  and  terrible  Alpine  peaks,  all 
gathered  to  rear  of  us  like  a  Sanhedrim  of  witches  of  Endor,  and 
looking  blasted,  naked  rock  to  the  waist,  then  all  in  greenish  and 
ample  petticoats  of  terraced  olive  woods,  orange  groves,  lemon 
groves  ;  very  strange  to  me. 

Shadows  of  the  great  sorrow,  however,  clung  to  him. 
Even  the  beauty  was  w^eird  and  ominous,  and  his  Journal 
gives  tx^e  picture  of  what  was  passing  in  him. 

Journal. 

Mentone,  February  13,  1867. — My  thoughts  brood  gloomily, 
sometimes  with  unspeakable  tenderness,  too,  over  the  past,  and 
what  it  gave  me  and  took  from  me.  I  am  best  off  when  I  get  into 
the  brown  olive  woods,  and  wander  along  by  the  rugged  paths, 
thinking  of  the  one,  or  of  the  many  who  are  now  there,  safe  from 
all  sorrow,  and  as  if  beckoning  to  me  :  *  Hither  friend,  hither ! 
thou  art  still  dear  to  us  if  we  have  still  an  existence.  We  bid  thee 
hope.'  The  company  of  nearly  all  my  fellow-creatures,  here,  and 
indeed  elsewhere,  is  apt  to  be  rather  a  burden  and  desecration  to 
me.  Their  miserable  jargoning  about  Ephemera  and  insignifi- 
cances, their  Eeform  Bills,  American  Nigger  questions,  unex- 
ampled prosperities,  admired  great  men,  &c.,  are  unspeakably 
wearisome  to  me,  and  if  I  am  bound  to  make  any  remark  in  an- 
swer, I  feel  that  I  was  too  impatient  and  partly  unreasonable,  and 
that  the  remark  had  better  not  have  been  made.  All  of  this  that 
is  possible  I  sedulously  avoid,  but  too  much  of  it  comes  in  spite  of 
me,  though  fairly  less  here  than  in  Chelsea.  Let  me  be  just  and 
thankful.  Surely  the  kindness  everybody  shows  me  deserves 
gratitude,  too.  Especially  the  perfect  hospitality  and  honestly- 
affectionate  good  treatment  I  experience  in  this  house,  and  from 
the  wildly-generous  mistress  of  it,  is  worthy  of  the  heroic  ages. 


Mentone.  289 

That  I  do  not  quite  forget,  let  ub  hope,  nor  shall.  Oh,  tliere  have 
been  noble  exceptions  among  the  vulgar,  dim-eyed,  greedy  mill- 
ions of  this  age ;  and  I  may  say  I  have  been  well  loved  by  my 
contemporaries — taken  as  a  body  corporate — thank  God  I  And 
these  exceptions  I  do  perceive  and  admit  to  have  been  the  very 
flower  of  their  generation,  to  be  silently  proud  of  and  loyal  tp 
while  I  live. 

Maixh  8, 1867. — Health  very  bad,  cough,  et  cetera,  but  princi- 
pally indigestion— can  have  no  real  improvement  till  I  see  C'helsea 
again.  Ck)urage  I  get  through  the  journey  laliter  qualiier,  and 
don't  travel  any  more.  I  am  very  sad  and  weak,  but  not  discon- 
tented or  indignant  as  sometimes.  I  live  mostly  alone  with  van- 
ished shadows  of  the  Past.  Many  of  them  rise  for  a  moment 
inexpressibly  tender.  One  is  never  long  absent  from  me.  Gone, 
gone,  but  very  beautiful  and  dear.  Eternity,  which  cannot  be  far 
off,  is  my  one  strong  city.  I  look  into  it  fixedly  now  and  then. 
All  terrors  about  it  seem  to  me  superfluous  ;  all  knowledge  about 
it,  any  the  least  glimmer  of  certain  knowledge,  impossible  to  liv- 
ing mortal.  The  universe  is  full  of  love,  but  also  of  inexorable 
sternness  and  severity,  and  it  remains  for  ever  true  that  God 
reigns.    Patience !    Silence !     Hope ! 

Vol.  IV.— 19 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

A.D.  1867.    iET.  72. 

Ketum  to  England — Intruders  in  Cheyne  Eow — Want  of  employ- 
ment— Settlement  of  the  Craigenputtock  estate — Charities — 
Public  affairs — Tory  Reform  Bill — '  Shooting  Niagara  ' — A 
new  horse — ^Visits  in  country  houses — Meditation  in  Journal — A 
beautiful  recollection. 

The  party  at  Mentone  broke  up  in  the  second  week  in 
March.  Lady  Ashburton  went  to  Rome  and  Xaples,  hav- 
ing tried  in  vain  to  induce  Carlyle  to  accompany  her.  He 
prepared  for  home  again,  and,  shrinking  from  the  solitude 
waiting  him  in  Cheyne  Row,  he  wrote,  before  leaving,  to 
ask  his  brother  to  meet  him  there,  with  some  conscious- 
]^ss  that  he  had  not  received,  as  graciously  as  he  might 
have  done,  his  brother's  attempts  to  live  with  him. 

I  am  often  truly  grieved  [he  said]  to  think  how  unreasonable 
and  unmanageable  I  was  with  you  last  time.  Surely  your  sympa- 
thy was  all  I  could  have  expected  ;  and  your  readiness  to  help  me 
was  and  continues  far  beyond  what  I  could  have  expected.  But 
perhaps  with  a  definite  period,  '  one  calendar  month, '  and  each 
doing  his  wisest,  we  shall  be  able  to  do  much  better.  I  intend  to 
make  an  efibrt  at  regulating  my  Chelsea  affairs  a  little  ;  especially 
sweeping  my  premises  clean  of  the  intolerable  intrusions  that  tor- 
ment me  there.  I  fancy,  too,  I  should  not  try  again  the  gaunt, 
entirely  solitary  life  I  led  latterly  ;  but  am  not  certain  as  to  get- 
ting back  Maggie  Welsh,  or  whom  I  should  get.  (!)n  these  points 
I  do  not  know  that  you  could  give  me  much  advice.  I  only  feel 
that  it  would  be  a  kind  of  light  amid  the  gloom  of  my  arrival  if, 
on  stepping  out,  I  found  your  face  instead  of  a  dead  blank. 


Tntniders  in  Chetjne  How,  291 

Tyndall's  escort  was  not  needed  a  seSond  time.  He 
fonnd  his  way  back  to  Chelsea  without  misadventure. 
John  Carlyle  was  waiting  as  he  desired,  and  he  settled  in 
with  more  composure  than  lie  had  felt  since  his  bereave- 
ment. The  *  intnisions '  had  to  be  dealt  with,  but  were 
not  easily  disposed  of.  Mrs.  Carlyle  once  said  she  had  the 
faculty  of  attracting. all  miserable  people  that  wanted  con- 
solation. Carlyle  seemed  to  attract  everyone  who  wanted 
help  for  body  or  soul,  or  advice  on  the  conduct  of  life. 
The  number  of  people  who  worried  him  on  such  matters, 
most  of  them  without  a  form  of  introduction,  is  hardly  to 
be  believed.  Each  post  brought  its  pile  of  lettere.  One 
admirer  wanted  a  situation  under  Government,  another 
sent  a  manuscript  to  be  read  and  recommended  to  a  pub- 
lisher, another  complained  that  Nature  had  given  him  a 
hideous  face;  he  had  cursed  his  life,  and  cursed  his 
mother  for  bearing  him  ;  what  was  he  to  do  ?  All  a§ked 
for  interviews.  Let  them  but  see  him,  and  thej'  would 
convince  him  of  their  deserts.  He  was  marvellously  pa- 
tient. He  answered  most  of  the  letters,  he  saw  most  of 
the  applicants.  He  gave  advice.  He  gave  money,  infi- 
nitely too  much.  Sometimes,  when  it  was  beyond  endur- 
ance, he  would  order  the  servant  to  admit  no  strange  face 
at  all.  In  such  cases  men  would  watch  in  the  street,  and 
pounce  upon  him  when  he  came  out  for  his  walk.  I  have 
been  with  him  on  such  occasions,  and  have  been  aston- 
ished at  the  efforts  which  he  would  make  to  be  kind. 
Once  I  recollect  a  girl,  an  entire  stranger,  wrote  to  him  to 
say  that  in  order  to  get  books  she  had  pawned  some  plate 
of  her  grandmother's.  She  was  in  danger  of  discovery 
and  ruin.  Would  Carlyle  help  her  to  redeem  it?  He 
consulted  me.  A  relation  of  mine,  who  lived  in  the 
neighbourhood,  made  inquiiy,  saw  the  girl,  and  found  that 
the  story  was  true.  He  replied  to  her  letter  as  the  kind- 
est of  fathers  might  have  done,  paid  the  money,  and  saved 


292  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

lier  from  sliame.  Sometimes  tlie  homage  was  more  dis- 
interested. I  liad  just  left  liis  door  one  day,  when  a 
bright  eager  lass  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  stopped  me  in 
the  Row,  and  asked  me  if  Thomas  Carljle  lived  there.  I 
sliowed  her  the  house,  and  her  large  ejes  glowed  as  if  she 
was  looking  upon  a  saint's  shrine.  This  pleased  him  when 
I  mentioned  it.  The  feeling  was  good  and  honest  and 
deserved  recognition.  But  altogether  he  was  terribly 
worried.  Intruders  worried  him.  Public  affairs  worried 
him.  Disraeli  was  bringing  in  his  scandalous  Reform 
Bill  '  to  dish  the  Whigs.'  Worse  than  all,  there  was  no 
work  cut  out  for  him,  and  he  .could  make  none  for  him- 
self. 

Journal. 

Chelsea,  April  4,  1867. — Idle !  Idle !  My  employments  mere 
trifles  of  business,  and  that  of  dwelling  on  the  days  that  culmi- 
nated on  the  21st  of  last  year.  How  sudden  was  that  bereavement 
to  me  !  how  pathetic,  touchingly  and  grandly  fateful ;  in  extent  of 
importance  to  me  how  infinite !  Perhaps  my  health  is  slightly 
mending  ;  don't  certainly  know,  but  my  spirits  don't  mend  appa- 
rently at  all.  Interest,  properly,  I  have  in  no  living  person,  in  no 
present  thing.  Their  '  Eef orm  Bill,'  their  &c.,  &c.  Acli  Gott !  I 
am  disgusted  if  by  chance  I  look  into  my  newspaper,  or  catch  a 
tone  of  the  insane  jargon  which  seems  to  be  occupying  everybody. 

April  20.— rWhat  a  day  to  look  back  upon  !  .  .  .  To-morrow 
by  the  day  of  the  month,  this  day  by  the  day  of  the  week,  about 
3  p.m.  How  shall  I  ever  learn  to  deal  with  that  immense  fact  ?  I 
am  incompetent  hitherto.  It  overwhelms  me  still.  I  feel  oftenesfc 
crushed  down  into  contemptibility  as  well  as  sorrow.  All  of  sun- 
shine that  remained  in  my  life  went  out  in  that  sudden  moment. 
All  of  strength  too  often  seems  to  have  gone.  Except  some  soft 
breathings  of  affection,  of  childlike  grief,  and  once — only  once  that 
I  remember,  of  pious,  childlike  hope  in  the  eternity  before  us — my 
last  fortnight  has  been  the  saddest,  dreariest,  sordidly  idle,  with- 
out dignity,  satisfaction,  or  worth.  I  have  tried,  too,  twice  over, 
for  something  of  work,  but  all  in  vain.  Will  it  be  for  ever  in  vain 
then  ?  Better  be  silent  than  continue  thus.  .  .  .  Were  it  per- 
mitted, I  could  pray — but  to  whom  ?     I  can  well  understand  the 


Iff////  nt'  j-:u,j.:  -'ju,, ,,:.  293 

Invocation  of  Saints.  One's  prayer  now  has  to  be  voifolcss,  dtjne 
with  the  heaii  still,  but  also  with  the  hands  still  more. 

April  ^\. — Abundantly  downcast,  dreaiy,  sorrowful ;  nothing  in 
me  but  sad  thoughts  and  recollections ;  ennobled  in  i>art  by  a  ten- 
derness, a  love,  a  pity,  Kteei)etl  as  if  in  tears.  Regrets  also  rise  in 
me  ;  bits  of  remorse  which  are  very  pungent.  How  death  the  inex- 
orable, unalterable,  stem  s<?para/w,  alters  everything !  .  .  .  But 
words  are  of  no  value,  and,  alas !  of  acts  I  have  none,  or  as  good  as 
none.  The  question,  WTiy  am  I  left  behind  thee  ?  as  yet  nearly 
altogether  wwanswered.  Can  I  ever  answer  it?  God  help  mo  to 
answer  it.  That  is  earnestly  my  prayer,  'and  I  "will  tiy  and  again 
tiy.  Be  that  the  annual  sacrifice  or  act  of  Temple  worship,  on  this 
"the  holiest  of  my  now  days  of  the  year. 

April  24. — Idle,  sick,  companionless ;  my  heart  is  very  heavy,  as 
if  /till  and  no  outlet  appointed.  Trial  for  employment  continues, 
and  shall  continue  ;  but  a^et  in  vain.  Writing  is  the  one  thing  I 
can  do ;  and  at  present  what  to  write  of  to  such  a  set  of  *  readers ' 
full  of  Reform  Bills,  Paris  Exhibition,  Question  of  Luxemburg, 
&c.  ?  Sometimes  poor  old  •  moorland  Craigenputtock  shines  out 
on  me ;  and  our  poor  life  there  has  traits  of  beauty  in  it,  almost 
like  a  romance.  I  wish  I  could  ri.se  with  something  into  the  limit- 
less Ideal,  and  disburden  myself  in  rounded  hannony  and  what 
poets  call  song — a  fond  wish  indeed  !  But  this  crabbed  Earth  with 
its  thunder  rods  and  dog  grottoes,  is  become  homeless  to  me,  and 
too  mean  and  contradictory. 

May  26.— 

To  die  ia  landing  on  some  silent  shore. 
Where  billows  never  break  nor  temi>e6t8  roar ; 
Ere  well  you  feel  the  friendly  stroke,  'tis  o'er. 

Such  a  life  as  I  now  lead  is  painful  and  even  disgraceful ;  the  life 
of  a  vanquished  slave,  who  at  best,  and  that  not  always,  is  silent 
nnder  his  i)enalties  and  sores. 

In  this  tragic  state  Carlyle  found  one  little  thing  to  do 
which  gave  him  a  certain  consolation.  By  his  wife's  death 
lie  had  become  the  absolute  owner  of  the  old  estate  of  the 
Welshes  at  Craigenputtock.  An  nnuli  miiiL^  itiiility  had 
carried  ofF  one  by  one  all  her  relations  on  the  father's  side, 
and  there  was  not  a  single  person  left  of  the  old  line  to 
whom  it  could  be  bequeathed.  He  thought  that  it  ought  not 


/ 


294  Cadyle's  Life  in  JjnuJon. 

to  lapse  to  his  own  family  ;  and  he  determined  to  leave  it 
to  his  eountry,  not  in  his  own  name,  but  as  far  as  possible 
in  hers.  With  this  intention  he  had  a  deed  drawn,  by 
which  Craigenputtock,  after  his  death,  was  to  become  the 
property  of  the  University  of  Edinbui-gh,  the  rents  of  it 
to  be  laid  out  in  supporting  poor  and  meritorious  students 
there,  under  the  title  of  '  the  John  Welsh  Bursaries.'  Her 
name  he  could  not  give,  because  she  had  taken  his  own. 
Therefore  he  gave  her  father's. 

Journal. 
June  22,  1867. — Finished  off  on  Thursday  last,  at  three  p.m.,' 
20th  of  June,  my  poor  bequest  of  Craigenputtock  to  Edinburgii 
University  for  bursaries.  All  quite  ready  there,  Forster  and 
Froude  as  witnesses ;  the  good  Profes^r  Masson,  who  had  taken 
endless  pains,  aHke  friendly  and  wise,  being  at  the  very  last  ob- 
jected to  in  the  character  of  '  witness,'  as  'a  party  interested,'  said 
the  Edinburgh  lawyer.  I  a  little  regretted  this  circumstance  ;  so 
I  think  did  Masson  secretly.  He  read  us  the  deed  with  sonorous 
emphasis,  bringing  every  word  and  note  of  it  home  to  us.  Then  I 
signed  ;  then  they  two — Masson  witnessing  only  with  his  eyes  and 
mind.  I  was  deeply  moved,  as  I  well  might  be,  but  held  my  peace 
and  shed  no  tears.  Tears  I  think  I  have  done  with  ;  never,  except 
for  moments  together,  have  I  wept  for  that  catastrophe  of  April 
21,  to  which  whole  days  of  weeping  would  have  been  in  other 
times  a  blessed  relief.  .  .  .  This  is  my  poor  '  Sweetheart  Ab- 
bey,' *  Cor  Dulce,'  or  New  Abbey,  a  sacred  casket  and  tomh  for  the 
sweetest  '  heart '  which,  in  this  bad,  bitter  world,  was  all  my  own. 
Darling,  darling !  and  in  a  little  while  we  shall  both  be  at  rest, 
and  the  Great  God  will  have  done  with  us  what  was  His  will. 

This  is  very  beautiful,  and  so  is  an  entry  which  fol- 
lows : — • 

July  14. — Her  birthday.  She  not  here — I  cannot  keep  it  for  her 
now — send  a  poor  gift  to  poor  old  Betty,  who,  next  to  myself,  re- 
members her  in  lifelong  love  and  sacred  sorrow.  This  is  all  I  can 
do.  To  a  poor  old  beggar  here  of  no  value  otherwise,  or  even  of 
less,  to  whom  she  used  to  give  a  shilling  if  they  met,  I  have  smug- 
gled a  small  anonymous  dole — most  poor,  most  ineffectual,  sorrow- 
ful, are  all  our  resources  against  the  gate  that  is  for  ever  shut. 


CharUus.  295 

This  is  another  instance  of  Carlyle's  cliarities.  He  re- 
menil)ered  his  wife's  pensioners :  but  he  had  as  long  or  a 
longer  list  of  his  own.  No  donation  of  his  ever  appeared 
in  printed  lists  ;  what  he  gave  he  gave  in  secret,  anony- 
mously as  here,  or  else  with  his  own  hand  as  one  human 
being  to  another ;  and  of  him  it  may  be  truly  said  that 
the  left  hand  did  not  know  what  the  right  was  doing. 
Tlie  undeserving  were  seldom  wholly  refused.  The  de- 
serving were  never  forgotten.  I  recollect  an  old  man,  past 
eighty,  in  Chelsea,  who  had  refused  parish  help,  and  as 
long  as  he  could  move  earned  his  living  by  wheeling  cheap 
crockery  about  the  streets.  Carlyle  had  a  germine  respect 
for  him,  and  never  missed  a  chance  of  showing  it.  Money 
was  plentiful  enough  now,  as  he  would  mournfully  ob- 
serve. Edition  followed  edition  of  the  complieted  works. 
He  had  more  thousands  now  than  he  had  hundreds  when 
he  published  '  Cromwell ' — but  he  never  altered  his  thrifty 
habits,  never,  even  in  extreme  age,  allowed  himself  any 
fresh  indulgence.     His  one  expensive  luxury  was  charit}'. 

The  sad  note  continues  to  souikI  through  the  Journal. 
The  shadow  of  his  lost  wife  seemed  to  rise  between  him 
and  every  other  object  on  which  he  tried  to  fix  his 
thoughts.  If  anything  like  duty  called  to  him,  however, 
he  could  still  respond — and  the  political  state  of  England 
did  at  this  thne  demand  a  few  words  from  him.  Through- 
out his  life  he  had  been  studying  the  social  and  political 
problems  of  modern  Europe.  For  all  disorders  moilern 
Europe  had  but  one  remedy,  to  abolish  the  subordination 
of  man  to  man,  to  set  every  individual  free,  and  give  him 
a  voice  in  the  government,  that  he  might  look  after  his 
own  interests.  This  once  secured,  with  free  room  and  no 
1  IV- 111,  all  w^ould  compete  on  equal  terms,  and  might  be 
expected  to  fall  into  the  places  which  naturally  belonged 
to  them.  None  at  any  rate  could  then  complain  of  in- 
justice ;  and  peace,  prosperity,  and  universal  content  would 


296  Carhjles  Life  in  London. 

follow.  Such  was  and  is  the  theory  ;  and  if  the  human 
race,  or  the  English  race,  were  all  wise  and  all  good,  and 
had  unbounded  territorial  room  over  which  to  spread, 
something  might  be  said  for  it.  As  the  European  world 
actually  w'as,  in  the  actual  moral  and  material  condition  of 
European  mankind,  with  no  spiritual  convictions,  no  sin- 
cere care  for  anything  save  money  and  what  money  could 
buy,  tliis  notion  of  universal  liberty  in  Carlyle's  opinion 
could  end  in  nothino^  save  universal  wreck.  If  the  Eno^- 
lish  nation  had  needed  governing  when  they  had  a  real 
religious  belief,  now,  when-  their  belief  had  become  con- 
ventional, they  needed  it,  he  thought,  infinitely  more. 
They  could  bear  the  degree  of  freedom  which  they  had 
already,  only  in  virtue  of  ancient  habits,  contracted  under 
wiser  arrangements.  They  would  need  the  ^^ry  best  men 
they  had  among  them  if  they  w^ere  to  escape  the  cataracts 
of  which  he  heard  the  approaching  thunder.  Yet  it  was 
quite  certain  to  him  that,  with  each  extension  of  the 
franchise,  those  whom  they  would  elect  as  their  rulers 
would  not  be  fitter  men,  but  steadily  inferior  and  more 
unfit.  Under  any  conceivable  franchise  the  persons  chosen 
would  represent  the  level  of  character  and  intelligence  in 
those  who  chose  them,  neither  more  nor  less,  and  there- 
fore the  lower  the  general  average  the  worse  the  govern- 
ment would  be.  It  had  long  been  evident  to  him  how 
things  were  going ;  but  every  descent  has  a  bottom,  and 
he  had  hoped  up  to  this  time  that  the  lowest  point  had 
been  reached.  He  knew  how  many  fine  qualities  the 
English  still  possessed.  He  did  not  believe  that  the 
majority  w^ere  bent  of  themselves  on  these  destructive 
courses.  If  the  wisest  and  ablest  would  come  forward 
with  a  clear  and  honorable  profession  of  their  true  convic- 
tions, he  had  considered  it  at  least  possible  that  the  best 
part  of  the  nation  would  respond  before  it  w^as  too  late. 
The  Tories  bad  just  come  into  office.     He  had  small  con- 


I'ubl'ic  Ajf'au'S.  29T 

fidence  in  them,  but  they  at  least  repudiated  tlio  new 
creed,  and  represented  the  old  national  traditions.  They 
had  an  opportunity,  if  they  would  use  it,  of  insisting  that 
the  poor  should  no  longer  be  robbed  by  false  weights  and 
measures  and  adulterated  goods,  that  the  eternal  war  should 
cease  l)etween  employers  and  employed,  and  the  profits 
of  labour  should  be  apportioned  by  some  nile  of  equity; 
that  the  splendid  colonial  inheritance  which  their  fore- 
fathers had  won  should  be  opened  to  the  millions  who 
were  suffocating  in  the  foetid  alleys  of  our  towns ;  that 
these  poor  people  should  be  enabled  to  go  where  they 
could  lead  hmnan  lives  again.  Here,  and  not  by  ballot- 
boxes  and  anarchic  liberty,  lay  the  road  to  salvation. 
Statesmen  who  dared  to  try  it  would  have  Nature  and  her 
laws  fighting  for  them.  They  might  be  thrown  out,  bnt 
they  would  come  back  again — come  in  stronger  and 
stronger,  for  the  good  sense  of  England  would  be  on  their 
side. 

With  a  languid  contempt,  for  he  half-felt  that  he  had 
been  indulging  in  a  dream,  Carlyle  in  this  year  found  the 
Tories  preparing  to  outbid  their  rivals,  in  their  own  arts 
or  their  own  folly,  courting  the  votes  of  the  mob  by  the 
longest  plunge  yet  ventured  into  the  democratic  whirlpool ; 
and  in  the  midst  of  his  own  grief  he  was  sorry  for  his 
country. 

There  is  no  spirit  in  me  to  write  [he  notes  in  his  Journal  J, 
thongh  I  try  it  sometimes ;  no  topic  and  no  audience  that  is  in 
the  least  dear  or  great  to  me.  Reform  Bill  going  its  fated  road, 
i.e.  England  getting  into  the  Niagara  rapicU  far  sooner  than  I  ex- 
pected  ;  even  this  no  longer  much  irritates  me,  much  affects  me. 
I  say  rather,  Well !  why  not  ?  Is  not  national  death,  with  new 
birth  or  without,  perhaps  preferable  to  such  utter  rottenness  of 
national  life,  so  called,  as  there  has  long  hopelessly  been.  Let  it 
come  when  it  likes,  since  there  are  Dizzies,  Gladstones,  Bnsselln, 
&c.,  triumphantly  prepared  to  bring  it  in.  Providenee  truly  is 
skilful  to  preiMure  its  instrumental  men.  .  Indeed,  all  England, 


^98  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

heavily  though  languidly  averse  to  this  embarking  on  the  Niagara 
rapids,  is  strangely  indifferent  to  whatever  may  follow  it.  '  Niag- 
ara, or  what  you  like,  we  will  at  least  have  a  villa  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean (such  an  improvement  of  climate  to  this),  when  Church  and 
State  have  gone,'  said  a  certain  shining  countess  to  me,  yesterday. 
Newspaper  editors,  in  private,  I  am  told,  and  discerning  people 
of  every  rank,  as  is  partly  apparent  to  myself,  talk  of  approaching 
*  revolution,'  '  Common  wealth,'  '  Common  illtli,'  or  whatever  it  may 
be,  with  a  singular  composure. 

Disraeli  had  given  the  word,  and  his  party  had  sub- 
mitted to  be  educated.  Political  emancipation  was  to  be 
the  road  for  them — not  practical  administration  and  war 
against  lies  and  rognery.  Carlyle  saw  that  we  were  in  the 
rapids,  and  could  not  any  more  get  out  of  them ;  but  he 
wished  to  relieve  his  own  soul,  and  he  put  together  the 
pamphlet  which  he  called  '  Shooting  Niagara,  and  After  ? ' 
When  Frederick  Maurice  published  his  heresies  about 
Tartarus,  intimating  that  it  was  not  a  place,  but  a  condi- 
tion, and  that  the  wicked  are. in  Tartarus  already,  James 
Spedding  observed  to  me  that  '  one  was  relieved  to  know 
that  it  was  no  worse.'  Carlyle's  I^iagara,  now  that  we 
are  in  the  middle  of  it,  seems  to  ns  for  the  present 
nothing  very  dreadful,  and  we  are  preparing  with  much 
equanimity,  at  this  moment,  to  go  down  the  second  cata- 
ract. The  broken  water,  so  far,  lies  on  the  other  side  of 
St.  George's  Channel.  The  first  and  immediate  effect  of 
the  Reform  Bill  of  1867  was  the  overthrow  of  Protestant 
ascendency  in  Ireland.  After  five  centuries  of  failure  in 
that  country,  the  English  Protestants  succeeded  in  plant- 
ing an  adequate  number  of  loyal  colonists  in  the  midst  of 
an  incurably  hostile  population,  and  thus  did  contrive  to 
exercise  some  peaceful  influence  there,  and  make  constitu- 
tional government  in  that  island  not  wholly  impossible. 
The  English  Democracy,  as  soon  as  they  wei'e  in  posses- 
sion of  power,  destroyed  that  influence.  The  result  we 
have  partly  seen,  and  we  shall  see  more  fully  hereafter. 


*^  Shooting  Nldgara.*  299 

Carlyle,  however,  did  not  anticipate,  as  the  consequence  of 
the  Niagara  shooting,  any  immediate  catastrophe ;  not 
even  this  in  Ireland.  He  meant  by  it  merely  the  complete 
development  of  the  present  tendency  to  regard  money- 
making  as  the  business  of  life,  and  the  more  rapid  degra- 
dation of  the  popular  moral  character — at  the  end  of  whieli 
perhaps,  but  still  a  long  way  off,  would  be  found  some 
'  scandalous  Copper  Captaincy.'  The  believers  in  progress 
on  these  lines,  therefore,  may  breathe  freely,  and,  like 
Spedding,  be  '  glad  that  it  is  no  worse.'  The  curious  feat- 
ure in  the  pamphlet  is  that  Carlyle  visibly  underrated 
the  disturbance  to  be  looked  for  in  our  actual  arrange- 
ments. He  thought  that,  after  the  complete  triumph  of 
democracy,  the  aristocracy  would  be  left  in  possession  of 
their  estates,  and  be  still  able  to  do  as  they  pleased  with 
them ;  to  hunt  and  shoot  their  grouse ;  or,  if  the  moors 
and  coverts  failed  them,  at  least  to  subside  into  rat-catch- 
ing. In  his  Journal,  September  IT,  1867,  there  is  a  quo- 
tation from  the  '  Memoirs  of  St.  Palaye ' : — '  Louis  XI 
aima  la  chasse  jusqu'a  sa  mort,  qui  arriva  en  1483.  Du- 
rant  sa  maladie  a  Plessis-les-Tours,  comme  il  ne  pouvait 
plus  prendre  ce  divertisement,  on  attrapait  les  plus  gros 
rats  qd'on  pouvait,  et  on  les  faisait  chasser  par  les  chats 
dans  ses  appartements,  pour  I'amuser.  *  Had  a  transient 
thought,'  he  says,  *  of  putting  that  as  emblematic  Finis  to 
the  hunting  epoch  of  our  vulgar  noble  lords.'  He  even 
considered  that,  if  the  stuff  was  in  them,  they  might  find 
a  more  honourable  occupation.  Supposing  them  to  retain 
the  necessary  power  over  their  properties,  they  might  form 
their  own  domains  into  circles  of  order  and  cosmos,  ban- 
ishing the  refraetitnj,  and  thus,  by  drill  and  discipline  and 
,wise  administration,  introduce  new  elements  into  the  gen- 
eral chaos.  *A  devout  imagination'  on  Carlyle's  part; 
but  an  imagination  merely.  If  it  were  conceivable,  as  it 
is  not,  that  the  aristocracy  would  prefer  such  an  occupation 


300  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

to  rat-catching,  their  success  would  depend  on  that  very 
power  of  '  banishing  the  refractory,'  of  wliich  it  is  certain 
that  they  wonld  be  deprived  if  they  showed  a  disposition 
to  create,  in  using  it,  an  influence  antagonistic  t6  a  ruling 
democracy.  The  Irish  experiment  does  not  indicate  that 
the  rights  of  landowners  would  be  treated  with  mucli  for- 
bearance wdien  the  exercise  of  those  rights  was  threaten- 
ing a  danger  to  '  liberty.' 

'  Shooting  Is  iagara '  appeared  first  in  '  Macmillan's  Mag- 
azine' for  August,  1867.  It  was  corrected  and  republished 
as  a  pamphlet  in  September,  and  was  Carlyle's  last  public 
utterance  on  English  politics.  He  thought  but  little  of  it, 
and  was  aware  how  useless  it  would  prove.  In  his  Jour- 
nal, August  3,  he  says  ; — 

An  article  for  Masson  and  '  Macmillan's  Magazine '  took  up  a 
good  deal  of  time.  It  came  out  mostly  from  accident,  little  by  voli- 
tion, and  is  very  fierce,  exaggerative,  ragged,  unkempt,  and  de- 
fective. Nevertheless  I  am  secretly  rather  glad  than  otherwise 
that  it  is  out,  that  the  howling  doggeries  (dead  ditto  and  other) 
should  have  my  last  word  on  their  affairs  and  them,  since  it  was  to 
be  had. 

A  stereotyped  edition  of  the  '  Collected  Works '  was 
now  to  be  issued,  and,  conscientious  as  ever,  Carlyle  set 
himself  to  revise  and  correct  the  whole  series.  He  took 
to  riding  again.  Miss  Bromley  provided  "him  with  a 
horse  called  Cornet^  between  whom  and  himself  there  w^as 
soon  established  a  personal  attachment,  and  on  Comet's 
back,  as  before,  he  sauntei-ed  about  the  London  environs, 
lie  described  himself  to  Miss  Bromley  as  very  solitary, 
the  most  silent  man  not  locked  into  the  solitary  system,  to 
be  found  in  all  her  Majesty's  dominions.  'Incipient  au- 
thors, beggars,  blockheads,  and  canaille  of  various  kinds,' 
continued  their  daily  worries.  '  Every  day  there  was  a* 
certain  loss  of  time  in  brushing  off  such  provoking  bothera- 
tions ; '  on  the  whole,  however,  the  trouble  was  not  much. 


Daily   Worriea,  301 

I  find  that  solitnde  [he  said]  and  one's  own  mA  and  Sdriona 
thoughts  (though  sometimes  in  bad  days  it  is  all  too  gloomy)  is 
almost  as  good  as  anything  I  get.  The  most  social  of  mankind  I 
could  define  myself,  but  grown  old,  sorrowful,  and  tembly  diflS- 
cult  to  please  in  regard  to  his  society.  I  rode  out  on  Comet  to 
Addiscombe,  stayed  two  hours  for  dinner,  and  rode  home  again  by 
moonlight  and  lamplight.  There  aie  now  three  railways  on  that 
poor  road  since  I  was  last  there,  and  apparently  3,000  new  dig- 
gings, lumber  heaps  and  new  villas  rising^  dirty  shops  risen^  and 
costermongera'  carts,  &c. — a  road,  once  the  prettiest  I  knew  for 
liding,  and  now  more  like  Tophet  and  the  City  of  Dis  than  any  I 
have  tried  lately.  Tophet  now  reaches  strictly  to  the  boundary 
lodge  of  Lady  A.,  and  has  much  sjxjiled  Addiscome  Farm  for  a 
tenant  of  my  humour.  'Niagara,*  I  heard  yesterday,  is  in  its 
fourth  thousand,  stirring  up  many  a  dull  head  one  hopes,  and 
*  sweeping  oflf  the  froth  from  the  Progress  Pot,*  as  one  correspon- 
dent phrased  it. 

He  worked  hard  on  the  *  revising'  business,  bnt  felt  no 
enthnsiasra  about  the  interest  which  *  his  works '  were  ex- 
citing ;  *  nothing  but  languor,  contempt,  and  indifference 
for  said  works — or  at  least  for  their  readers  and  them.' 
*The  works  had  indeed  cost  Iiiin  li is  life,  and  were  in 
some  measure  from  the  lieart,  and  all  h6  could  do.  But 
the  readers  of  them  were  and  had  been — what  should  he 
say  ? '  and  in  fact  '  no  man's  work  in  this  world  could  de- 
mand for  itself  the  smallest  doit  of  wages,  or  were  intrin- 
sically better  than  zero.  That  was  the  fact,  when  one 
had  arrived  where  he  had  arrived.'  The  inoTiey  which 
was  now  coming  in  was  actually  painful. 

Vanished,  vanished,  they  that  should  have  taken  pleasure  from 
'\\.  Ah  me  !  ah  me  I  The  more  I  look  back  on  that  thirteen  years 
of  work  [over  *  Frederick  '],  the  more  appalling,  huge,  unexampled 
it  appears  to  me.  Sad  pieties  aiise  to  think  that  it  did  not  A*i7/me, 
that  in  spite  of  the  world  I  got  it  done,  and  that  my  noble  uncom- 
plaining Darling  lived  to  see  it  done.  As  to  the  English  world's 
stupidity  upon  it,  that  is  a  small  matter  to  me — or  none  at  all  for 
the  last  year  and  a  half.  That  I  bolievo  is  i>artly  silence  and  pre- 
occnpancy ;  and  were  it  wholly  stupidity,  didn't  I  already  know 


302  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

how  '  stupid '  the  poor  English  now  are.  Book  is  not  quite  zero  I 
perceive,  but  will  be  good  for  something  by-and-by.  ,  .  .  My 
state  of  health  is  very  miserable,  though  I  still  sometimes  think 
it  fundamentally  improving.  Such  a  total  wreck  had  that  '  Fred- 
erick '  reduced  me  to,  followed  by  what  had  lain  next  in  store  for 
me.  Oh,  complain  not  of  Heaven !  now  does  my  poor  sinful 
heart  almost  even  fall  into  that  bad  stupid  sin.  Oceans  of  un- 
spoken thoughts — or  things  not  yet  thought  or  thinkable — som- 
bre, solemn,  cloudy-moonlit,  infinitely  sad,  but  full  of  tenderness 
withal,  and  of  a  love  that  can  now  be  noble, — this,  thank  God,  is 
the  element  I  dwell  in. 

Journal. 

Gielsea,  September  30,  1867. — Nothing  to  mark  here  that  is  not 
sad  and  mean.  Trouble  with  extraneous  fools  from  all  quarters ; 
penny  post  a  huge  inlet  to  that  class  who,  by  hypothesis,  have  no 
respect  of  persons,  but  think  theniselves  entitled  to  intrude  with 
any  or  without  any  cause,  upon  the  busiest,  saddest,  sacredest,  or 
most  important  of  their  fellow-mortals.  Fire  mostly  delivers  us 
from  the  common  run  of  these.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  of  joy- 
ful in  my  life,  nor  ever  likely  to  be  ;  no  truly  loved  or  loving  soul — 
or  practically  as  good  as  none — left  to  me  in  the  earth  any  more. 
The  one  object  that  is  wholly  beautiful  and  noble,  and  in  any  sort 
helpful  to  my  poor  heart,  is  she  whom  I  do  not  name.  The  thought 
of  her  is  drowned  in  sorrow  to  me,  but  also  in  tenderness,  in  love 
inexpressible,  aUd  veritably  acts  as  a  kind  of  high  and  sacred  con- 
solation to  me  amidst  the  intrusive  basenesses  and  empty  bothera- 
tions that  otherwise  each  day  brings.  I  feel  now  and  then,  but 
repress  the  impatient  wish,  *  Let  me  rejoin  her  there  in  the  Land 
of  Silence,  whatever  it  be.'  Truly,  if  my  work  is  done  why  should 
not  I  plainly  icish  to  be  there  ?  This  is  very  ungrateful  to  some  of 
my  friends  I  still  have,  some  of  whom  are  boundlessly  kind  to  me  ; 
and  indeed  all  the  world,  known  and  unknown,  seems  abundantly 
eager  to  do  for  me  whatever  it  can,  for  which  I  have  a  kind  of 
thankfulness  transiently  good,  and  ought  to  have  more.  But,  alas  ! 
I  cannot  be  helped — that  is  the  melancholy  fact. 

Chelsea,  October  1. — Inconceivable  are  the  mean  miseries  I  am  in 
just  now,  about  getting  new  clothes — almost  a  surgical  question 
with  me  latterly — about  fitting  this,  contriving  that ;  about  paltry 
botherations  with  which  I  am  unacquainted,  which  were  once  all 
kept  aloof  from  me  by  a  bright  one  now  hidden  from  my  eyes. 


Weariness  of  Life,  303 

...     In  fact  my  skin  is  naturally  far  too  thin,  for  this  '  age  of 
progress '  especially. 

CheUeOy  October  8. — Solitary  since  Thursday  last  altogether. 
Maggie  went  away  that  day,  and  no  human  voice,  not  even  a  light 
giggling  one,  sounds  in  this  vacant  house  of  mine.  No  matter 
that  in  general ;  but  as  yet  I  am  unused  to  it.  Sad  enough  I 
silently  am.  Infirmities  of  age  crowd  upon  me.  I  am  gro^t-n  and 
growing  very  weak,  as  is  natural  at  these  years.  Natural,  but  not 
joyful — life  without  the  power  of  living — what  a  misery  I 

Chelsea^  October  30. — Am  of  a  sadness,  and  occasionally  of  a  ten- 
derness which  surprises  even  myself  in  these  late  weeks— «eem8  as 
if  the  spirit  of  my  loved  one  were,  in  a  i)oor  metaphorical  sense, 
always  near  me  ;  all  other  friends  gone,  and  solitude  with  her 
alone  left  me  henceforth.  Utterly  weak  health  I  suppose  has 
much  to  do  with  it.  Strength  quite  a  stranger  to  me  ;  digestion, 
&c.,  totally  ruined,  though  nothing  specific  to  complain  of  as  dan- 
gerous or  the  like — and  probably  am  too  old  ever  to  recover.  Life 
is  verily  a  weariness  on  these  tei*ms.  Oftenest  I  feel  \Nilling  to  go, 
were  my  time  come.  Sweet  to  rejoin,  were  it  only  in  Etenial  Sleep, 
those  that  are  away.  That,  even  that,  is  now  and  then  the  whisper 
of  my  worn-out  heart,  and  a  kind  of  solace  to  me.  *  But  why  an- 
nihilation or  eternal  sleep  ? '  I  ask  too.  They  and  I  are  alike  in 
the  will  of  the  Highest.     Amen. 

'Niagara,'  seventh  thousand  printed,  Forster  told  me — well, 
well !     Though  what  good  is  in  it  either  ? 

Clielsea,  November  15. — Went  to  Belton  '  Saturday,  gone  a  week. 
Returned  Saturday  last,  and  have  been  slowly  recovering  myself 
ever  since  from  that  '  week  of  country  air '  and  other  salubrity. 
Nothing  could  excel  the  kindness  of  my  reception,  the  nobleness 
of  my  treatment  throughout.  People  were  amiable  too,  and  clever, 
some  of  them  almost  interesting,  but  it  would  not  do.  I,  in  brief, 
could  not  sleep,  and  oftenest  \*'a8  in  secret  supremely  sad  and  miser- 
able among  the  bright  things  going.  Conclude  I  am  not  fit  any 
longer  for  visiting  in  great  houses.  The  futile  valetting — intrusive 
and  hindersome,  nine-tenths  of  it,  rather  than  helpful— the  dress- 
ing, stripping  and  again  dressing,  the  *  witty  talk ' — Ach  GoU  !— 
especially  as  crown  and  summary  of  all,  the  dining  at  8-9  p.m.,  all 
this  is  fairly  unmanageable  by  me.  Disce  JtistUiam,  monite.  Don't 
go  back  if  you  be  wise,  except  it  be  fairly  unavoidable.  .  .  . 
Oh,  the  thoughts  I  liad  in  those  silent,  solitary  days,  and  how,  in 

1  Lady  Marian  Alford**,  near  Grantham. 


304  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

the  wakeful  French  bed  there,  the  image  of  another  bed  far  away 
in  the  Abbey  Kirk  of  Haddington,  in  the  still  infinitude  of  Eter- 
nity, came  shooting  like  a  javelin  through  my  heart.  Don't,  don't 
again  !  All  day  my  thoughts  were  of  her,  and  there  was  far  less  of 
religion  in  them  than  while  here. 

A  more  interesting  expedition  than  this  to  Belton  was 
with  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  to  see  Woolsthorpe,  the 
birthplace  of  Sir  Isaac  I^ewton. 

Newton  (he  says),  who  was  once  my  grandest  of  mortals,  has 
sunk  to  a  small  bulk  and  character  with  me  now ;  how  sunk  and 
dwindled  since  in  1815,  fifty  years  ago,  when  I  sate  nightly  at 
Annan,  invincibly  tearing  my  way  through  that  old  Principia, 
often  up  till  three  a.m.,  without  outlook  or  wish  almost,  except  to 
master  it^  the  loneliest  and  among  the  most  triumphant  of  all 
young  men.  Newton  is  quite  dead  to  me  since  that ;  and  I  rec- 
ognise hundreds  and  thousands  of  '  greater  men.'  Nevertheless, 
he  remains  great  in  his  kind,  and  has  always  this  of  supremely 
notable  that  he  made  the  grandest  discovery  in  science  which 
mankind  ever  has  achieved  or  can  again  achieve.  Wherefore  even 
I  could  not  grudge  the  little  pilgrimage  to  him. 

The  loneliness  in  Cheyne  Row  was  not  entirely  un- 
broken this  autumn.  He  had  a  visit  from  his  broth igr 
James,  'whose  honest,  affectionate  face  enlivened  the 
gloomy  solitude  for  him.'  James  Carlyle  had  been  rarely 
in  London,  and  had  '  the  sights '  to  see,  had  he  cared  about 
them.  It  seemed  that  he  cared  nothing  for  any  of  them, 
but  very  much  for  his  forlorn  and  solitary  brother,  show- 
ing signs  of  true  affection  and  sympathy,  which  were  very 
welcome.  Carlyle  spoke  of  him  as  'an  excellent  old 
Annandale  specimen  ;  my  father's  pupil,  formed  by  my 
father's  fashions,  as  none  of  the  rest  of  us  were.' 

A  certain  attention,  though  growing  yearly  fainter,  was 
given  to  the  world  and  its  affairs.  The  Reform  Bill  was 
producing  its  fruits,  clianges  of  ministry,  Clerkenwell  ex- 
plosions, &c.  &c.,  which  brought  tlie  Irish  question 
'  within  the  range  of  practical  politics.'     Carlyle  observed 


it  all  with  his  old  contempt,  no  longer  at  white  heat,  Imt 
warming  occasionally  into  red. 

No  Feniau  has  yet  blown  us  up  (he  wrote  to  Miss  Bromley).  I 
sit  in .  speechless  admiration  of  our  English  treatment  of  these 
Fenians  first  and  last.  It  is  as  if  the  rats  of  a  house  had  decided 
to  expel  and  ext^iminate  the  human  inhabitants,  which  latter 
seemed  to  have  neither  rat-catchers,  tmp^,  nor  arsenic,  and  arc 
trying  to  prevail  by  the  *  method  of  love.'  Better  s})eed  to  them  a 
great  deal !  If  Walpole  were  to  weep  to  the  head-centres  a  little, 
perhaps  it  might  help. 

He  had  an  old  interest  in  Ireland.  He  had  studied  it 
once,  with  a  view  to  writing  on  the  subject,  and  was 
roused  into  disgust  and  scorn  with  this  new  fruit  of 
Liberalism.  But  he  was  haunted  by  ghosts,  and  neither 
Ireland  nor  English  politics  could  drive  his  sorrow  out  of 
his  mind. 

Journal. 

Novemher  30,  1867. — Have  been  remembering  vividly  all  morn- 
ing, with  inexpressible  emotion,  how  my  loved  one  at  Craigenput- 
tock,  six  or  seven-and-thirty  years  ago,  on  summer  mornings  after 
breakfast  used  very  often  to  come  up  to  the  little  dressing-room 
where  I  was  shaving  and  seat  herself  on  a  chair  behind  me,  for  the 
privilege  of  a  little  further  talk  while  this  went  on.  Instantly  on 
finishing  I  took  to  my  woii,  and  probably  we  did  not  meet  much 
again  till  dinner.  How  loving  this  of  her,  the  dear  one !  I  never 
saw  fully  till  now  what  a  trust,  a  kindness,  lovo,  and  i>erfect  unity 
of  heart  this  indicated  in  her.  The  figure  of  her  bright,  cheery, 
beautiful  face  mirrored  in  the  glass  beside  my  own  nigged,  soapy 
one  answering  curtly  to  keep  up  her  cjieeiful,  pretty  talk,  is  lively 
before  me  as  if  I  saw  it  with  eyes.  Ah !  and  where  is  it  now  ? 
Forever  hidden  from  me.  Forever?  The  answer  is  with  God 
alone,  and  one's  poor  hopes  seem  fond  and  too  blessed  to  be  true. 
Ah  me  !  ah  me  I  Not  quite  till  this  morning  did  I  ever  see  what 
a  perfect  love,  and  under  such  conditions  too,  this  little  bit  of 
simple  8]>ontaneity  betokened  on  my  dear  Jeannio's  jiart.  Never 
till  her  death  did  I  sc^e  how  much  she  loved  me.  .  .  .  Nor,  I 
fear,  did  she  ever  know  (could  she  have  seen  across  the  stormy 
clouds  and  eclipsing  miseries)  what  a  love  I  bore  A«r,  and  shall 
always,  how  %'ainly  now,  in  my  inmost  heart.  These  things  are 
Vol.  IV. —20 


3i>6  Carhjlvs  Life  m   London. 

beautiful,  but  they  are  unutterably  sad,  and  have  in  them  some- 
thing considerable  of  remorse  as  well  as  sorrow.  Alas  !  why  does 
one  first  see  fully  what  worth  the  soul's  jewel  had  when  it  is  gone 
without  return  ?  Most  weak  creatures  are  we  ;  weak,  perverse, 
wayward,  especially  weak.  .  .  .  Sometimes  I  call  myself  weak, 
morbid,  wrong,  in  regard  to  all  this.  Sometimes  again  I  feel  it 
sordid,  base,  ungrateful,  when  all  this  gets  smothered  up  in  vul- 
gar interruption,  and  I  see  it  as  if  frozen  away  from  me  in  dull 
thick  vapour  for  days  together.  So  it  alternates.  I  pretend  to  no 
regulation  of  it ;  honestly  endeavour  to  let  it  follow  its  own  law. 
That  is  my  inile  in  the  matter.  Of  late,  in  my  total  lameness  and 
impotency  for  work  (which  is  a  chief  evil  for  me),  I  have  some- 
times thought,  '  One  thing  you  could  do — write  some  record  of 
her — make  some  selection  of  her  letters  w^hich  you  think  justly 
among  the  cleverest  ever  written,  and  which  none  but  yourself 
can  quite  understand.  But  no  !  but  no  !  How  speak  of  her  to 
such  an  audience  ?     What  can  it  do  for  her  or  for  me  ? 

This  is  the  first  sign  of  the  intention  which  Carljle 
afterwards  executed.  How  it  ripened  will  be  seen  pres- 
ently.    Meanwliile  tlie  Journal  continues  : — 

December  6. — I  am  in  my  seventy-third  year.^  .  .  ,  Length 
of  days  under  such  conditions  as  mine '  are  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
coveted,  but  to  be  humbly  deprecated  rather.  .  .  .  My  out- 
look continually  is  all  to  the  great  change  now  inevitably  near, 
The  sure  hope  to  be  "at  rest  and  to  be  where  my  loved  ones  are 
(the  Almighty  God  alone  knows  where  or  how  that  is,  but  I  take 
it  always  to  be  a  place  of  rest)  is  the  only  prospect  of  being  fairly 
better  than  I  have  been.  My  work  being  all  done,  as  I  more  and 
more  fear  it  is,  w  hy  should  I  wish  to  linger  here  ?  My  lost  bright 
one,  all  my  bright  ones  are  away — away.  Society,  of  which  I 
might  still  have  plenty,  does  me  no  good  whatever  ;  frets,  disgusts, 
and  provokes  me  ;  leaves  the  poor  disturbed  heart  dark  and  void  ; 
an  unfathomable  lake  of  sorrow  lying  silent  under  that  poor  foam 
of  what  is  called  talk,  and  in  perhaps  three  cases  out  of  four  is 
fairly  worse  than  solitude.  *  There  is  no  serious  talk,  sir, '  said 
old  Samuel ;  '  nobody  now  talks  seriously  ' —  a  frightful  saying, 
but  a  truer  now  than  ever.  ...  In  general  the  talk  of  people 
suggests  to  me  w^hat  a  paltiy  dog-kennel  of  a  world — now  rushing 
fast  to  total  anarchy  and  self-government  by  the  basest — this  must 
1  His  birthday  was  December  4. 


Journal.  '^>r»7 

be  ;  and  that  I  am  a  i)oor  old  man,  liable  to  be  bored,  provoked, 
and  diHtressed,  rather  than  helped  any  way,  by  his  fellow-creat* 
urea.  In  every  condition  under  God's  sky  is  there  not  a  right 
way  of  behaving  under  it  ?  And  is  there  any  other  item  important 
except  simply  that  one  ?  Courage,  hope,  love  to  the  death,  and 
be  silent  in  defect  of  speech  that  were  good. 

December  22. — '  Youth,'  says  somebody,  '  is  a  garland  of  roses.' 
I  did  not  find  it  such.  *  Age  is  a  crown  of  thorns.'  Neither  is  this 
altogether  true  for  me.  II  sadness  and  sorrow  tend  to  loosen  ua 
from  life,  they  make  the  place  of  rest  desirable.  If  incurable 
grief  be  love  all  steeped  in  tears,  and  lead  us  to  pious  thoughts 
and  longings,  is  not  grief  an  earnest  blessing  to  us?  Alas!  that 
one  is  not  pious  always  :  that  it  is  anger,  bitterness,  imjmtience, 
and  discontent  that  occupies  one's  ix)or  weak  heart  so  much 
oftener.  S(Hiie  mornings  ago  I  said  to  myself,  '  Is  there  no  book 
of  piety  you  could  still  write  ?  Forget  the  basenesses,  miseries, 
and  abominations  of  this  fast-sinking  world — its  punishment  come 
or  at  hand ;  and  dwell  among  the  x>oor  straggling  elements  of 
pity,  of  love,  of  awe  and  worship  you  can  still  discern  in  it !  Bet- 
ter so.  Bight,  surely,  far  better.  I  wish,  I  wish  I  cuuld.  Was 
my  great  grief  sent  to  me  perhaps  for  that  end  ?  In  rare  better 
moments  I  sometimes  strive  to  entertain  an  imagination  of  that 
kind  ;  but  as  to  doing  anything  in  consequence,  alas  !  alas  I ' 

'  All  England  has  taken  to  stealing,'  says  a  certain  newspaper 
for  the  last  two  Weeks.  Very  serious,  means  mil  way  swindling, 
official  jobbery,  &c.  Remedy,  he  thinks,  will  be  that  we  shall  all 
grow  as  poor  as  Hindoos,  and  then  be  as  fiercely  vigilant.  Would 
it  not  be  I'easonabler  to  find  now  your  small  remainder  of  honest 
people,  and  arm  them  with  authority  over  your  multitudinous 
knaves !  Here  and  there  we  are  beginning  to  see  into  the  meaning 
of  self-government  by  the  hungry  rabble. 

The  last  stage  of  life's  journey  is  necessarily  dark,  sad,  and  car- 
ried on  under  steadily  increasing  difficulties.  We  are  alone  ;  all 
our  loved  ones  and  cheering  fellow-pilgrims  gone.  Our  strength 
is  failing,  wasting  more  and  more ;  day  is  sinking  on  us ;  night, 
coming,  not  metaphorically  only.  The  road,  to  our  growing  weak- 
ness, dimness,  injurability  of  every  kind,  becomes  more  and  more 
obstructed,  intricate,  diffi^cult  to  feet  and  eyes ;  a  road  among 
brakes  and  brambles,  swamps  and  stumbling  places ;  no  welcome 
shine  of  a  humcm  cottage  with  its  hospitable  candle  now  alight  for 
us  in  these  waste  solitudes.    Our  eyes,  if  we  have  any  light,  real 


308  Cavlyle\^  J^it<'  '/<   London. 

only  on  the  eternal  stars.  Tims  we  stagger  on,  imiDediments  in- 
creasing, force  diminishing,  till  at  length  there  is  equality  between 
the  terms,  and  we  do  all  infallibly  arrive.  So  it  has  been  from 
the  beginning ;  so  it  will  be  to  the  end — forever  a  mystery  and 
miracle  before  which  human  intellect  falls  dumb.  Do  we  reach 
those  stars  then  ?  Do  we  sink  in  those  swamps  amid  the  dance  of 
dying  dreams?  Is  the  threshold  we  step  over  but  the  hrinlx:  in 
that  instance,  and  our  liome  thenceforth  an  infinite  Inane  ?  God, 
our  Eternal  Maker,  alone  knows,  and  it  shall  be  as  He  wills,  not 
as  we  would.  His  mercy  be  upon  us  !  '^\'T.iat  a  natural  human  as- 
piration ! 

December  30. — Ah  me  !  Am  I  good  for  nothing  then  ?  Has  my 
right  hand — head  rather — altogether  lost  its  cunning  ?  It  is  my 
heart  that  has  fallen  heavy,  wrapt  in  endless  sadness  and  a  mist  of 
stagnant  musings  upon  death  and  the  grave.  Nothing  now,  no 
person  now  is  beautiful  to  me.  Nobleness  in  this  world  is  as  a 
thing  of  the  past.  I  have  given  uj)  England  to  the  deaf  stupidi- 
ties, and  to  the  fatalities  that  follow,  likewise  deaf.  Her  struggles, 
I  perceive,  under  these  nightmares,  will  reach  through  long  sor- 
did centuries.  Her  actual  administerings,  sufferings,  performings, 
and  attemptings  fill  me  unpleasantly  with  abhorrence  and  con- 
tempt, both  at  once,  for  which  reason  I  avoid  thinking  of  them. 
'Fenianism,'  'Abyssinian  wars,'  *  trades-unions, ',' philanthropic 
movement ' — let  the  dead  bury  their  dead. 

One  evening,  I  think  in  the  spring  of  1866,  we  two  had  come 
up  from  dinner  and  were  sitting  in  this  room,  very  weak  and  weary 
creatures,  perhaps  even  I  the  wearier,  though  she  far  the  weaker ; 
I  at  least  far  the  more  inclined  to  sleep,  which  directly  after  din- 
nel'  was  not  good  for  me.  '  Lie  on  the  sofa  there,'  said  she — the 
ever  kind  and  graceful,  herself  refusing  to  do  so — *  there,  but  don't 
sleep,'  and  I,  after  some  superficial  objecting,  did.  In  old  years 
I  used  to  lie  that  way,  and  she  would  play  the  piano  to  me  :  a 
long  series  of  Scotch  tunes  which  set  my  mind  finely  wandering 
through  the  realms  of  memory  and  romance,  and  effectually  pre- 
vented sleep.  That  evening  I  had  lain  but  a  few  minutes  when 
she  turned  round  to  her  piano,  got  out  the  Thomson  Burns  book, 
and,  to  my  surprise  and  joy,  broke  out  again  into  her  bright  little 
stream  of  harmony  and  poesy,  silent  for  at  least  ten  years  before, 
and  gave  me,  in  soft  tinkling  beauty,  pathos,  and  melody,  all  my 
old  favourites  :  *  Banks  and  Braes,'  '  Flowers  of  the  Forest,'  *  Gil- 


Journal,  309 

deroy/  not  forgetting  'Duncan  Gray,*  *Cauld  Kail/  *  Irish  Coolen,* 
or  any  of  my  favouiites  tmgic  or  comic  ;  all  which  she  did  with  a 
modest  neatness  and  completeness — I  might  say  with  an  honest 
geniality  and  unobtrusively  beautiful  perfection  of  heart  and  liand 
— which  I  have  never  seen  equalled  by  the  most  brilliant  players, 
among  which  sort  she  was  always  humbly  far  from  ranking  her- 
self ;  for  except  to  me,  or  some  quiet  friend  and  me,  she  would 
never  play  at  any  time. 

I  was  greatly  pleased  and  thankful  for  this  unexpected  breaking 
of  the  silence  again,  and  got  really  a  fine  and  almost  blessed  kind 
of  pleasure  out  of  it,  a  soothing  and  assuagement  such  as  for  long  I 
had  not  known.  Indeed  I  think  it  is  yet  the  actually  best  little 
hour  I  can  recollect  since,  very  likely  the  pleasantcst  I  shall  ever 
have.  Foolish  soul !  I  fancied  this  was  to  be  the  new  beginning 
of  old  days,  that  her  health  was  now  so  much  improved,  and  her 
spirits  especially,  that  she  would  often  do  me  this  favour,  and  part 
of  my  thanks  and  glad  speech  to  her  went  in  that  sense,  to  which  I 
remember  she  merely  finished  shutting  her  joiano  and  answered 
nothing.  That  piano  has  never  again  Sounded,  nor  in  my  time  will 
or  shall.  In  late  months  it  has  grown  clearer  to  me  than  ever 
that  she  had  said  to  herself  that  night,  *  I  will  play  him  his  tunes 
all  yet  once,'  and  had  thought  it  would  be  but  once.  .  .  .  This 
is  now  a  thing  infinitely  touching  to  me.  So  like  her ;  so  like 
her.  Alas,  alas !  I  was  very  blind,  and  might  have  known  better 
how  near  its  setting  my  bright  sun  was. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

A.D.  1868.      MI.  73. 

The  Eyre  Committee  —Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church — A 
lecture  by  Tyndall— Visit  to  Stratton — S.  G.  O. — Last  sight 
of  the  Grange — 'Letters  and  Memorials  of  Mrs.  Carlyle ' — 
Meditations  in  Journal — Modern  Atheism — Democracy  and 
popular  orators — Scotland — Interview  with  the  Queen — Por- 
traits—Modern Atheism — Strange  applications — Loss  of  use 
of  the  right  hand — Use§  of  anarchy. 

The  persecution  of  General  Eyre  had  been  protracted  with 
singular  virulence.  He  had  been  recalled  from  Jamaica. 
His  pension  was  withheld,  and  he  was  financially  a  ruined 
man.  The  Eyre  Committee  continued,  doing  what  ■  it 
could  for  him.  Carhde  was  anxious  as  ever.  I  never 
knew  him  more  anxious  about  any  tiring.  It  had  been 
resolved  to  present  a  petition  in  Eyre's  behalf  to  tlie 
Government.  Carlyle  drew  a  sketch  of  one  '  tolerably  to 
his  own  mind,'  and  sent  it  to  the  Committee.  It  appeared, 
however,  not  to  be  to  t/ieir  minds.  They  thanked  him, 
found  what  he  said  '^fine  and  true  ;'  but,  in  short,  they  did 
not  like  it,  and  he  acquiesced.  His  interest  was  not  al- 
tered. 

I  have  done  my  bit  of  duty  or  seeming  duty  (he  said),  and  there 
will  be  no  further  noise  from  it.  Eyre's  self  down  here,  visibly  a 
brave,  gentle,  chivalrous,  and  clear  man,  whom  I  would  make 
dictator  of  Jamaica  for  the  next  twenty-five  years  were  I  now  king 
of  it — has  withal  something  of  the  Grandison  in  him,  mildly  per- 
ceptible.    That  is  his  limiting  condition. 


DiscstcMlshmeivt  of  the  Irish  Church,  311 

Occasionally  and  at  longish  intervals  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  tempted  into  London  society.  lie  made  acquaintance 
with  Lord  and  Lady  Salisbury  (the  father  of  the  present 
lord,  who  died  soon  after),  both  of  whom  he  nmch  liked. 
He  went  one  evening  to  the  Dean  of  Westminster's. 

Lion  entertainment  to  Princess  Helena  and  her  Prince  Christian 
Innocent  little  Princess,  has  a  kind  of  heauty,  &c.  One  little  flash 
of  jjretty  pride,  only  one,  when  she  rose  to  go  out  from  dinner, 
shook  her  bit  of  train  right,  raised  her  pretty  head  (fillet  of  dia- 
monds sole  ornament  round  her  hair),  and  sailed  out.  'A  prin- 
cess bom,  you  know  !  _'  looked  really  well,  the  exotic  Uttle  soul. 
Dinner,  evening  generally,  was  miserable,  futile,  and  cost  me  si- 
lent insomnia  the  whole  night  through.  De8er\'ed  it,  did  I  ?  It 
was  not  of  my  choosing — not  quite. 

The  Irish  Church  fell  soon  after,  as  the  first  branch  of 
the  famous  upas  tree  the  hewing  down  of  which  has 
proved  so  beneficent.  Carlyle  had  long  known  that  the 
Irish  Church  was  an  anomaly,  but  he  did  not  rejoice  in 
its  overthrow,  each  step  which  weakened  English  authority 
in  Ireland  bringing  nearer  the  inevitable  fresh  conflict  for 
the  sovereignty  of  the  island. 

Irish  Church  Resolution  passed  by  a  great  majority.  Nonjlocci 
facio.  In  my  life  I  have  seen  few  more  anarchic,  factious,  unpa- 
triotic achievements  than  this  of  Gladstone  and  his  Parliament  in 
regard  to  such  an  Ireland  as  now  is.  Poor  Gladstone  !  Poor  old 
decayed  Church  and  ditto  State  !  But  once  more,  non  flocci  facio^ 
him  or  it.  If  they  could  abolish  Parliamentary  eloquence  it  would 
be  worth  a  hundred  abolitions  of  the  Irish  Church,  poor  old  creat- 
ure ! 

Time  hung  heavily  at  Chelsea,  and  the  evenings  were 
dreary.  Tyndall  was  to  lecture  at  the  Royal  Institution 
on  Faraday.  Carlyle  was  not  enthusiastic  about  science 
and  the  blessings  to  be  expected  from  it ;  yet  he  was 
gratefully  attached  to  Tyndall,  and  was  pereuaded  to  at- 
tend. 


312  Carlyles  Life  in  London. 


Journal. 

January  27,  1868. — Attended  Tyndall's  lecture  (on  Faraday,  his 
genius  and  merits),  which  Tyndall  treated  as  quite  heroic.  A  full 
and  somewhat  distinguished  audience,  respectful,  noiseless,  atten- 
tive, but  not  fully  sympathetic,  I  should  say  ;  such,  at  least,  was 
my  own  case,  feeling  rather  that  the  eulogy  was  perhaps  overdone. 
As  to  myself,  '  the  grandeur  of  Faraday's  discoveries,'  &c.,  excited 
in  me  no  real  enthusiasm,  nor  was  either  his  faculty  or  his  history 
a  matter  I  could  reckon  heroic  in  that  high  degi-ee.  In  sad  fact, 
I  cared  but  little  for  these  discoveries — reckoned  them  uncertain — 
to  my  dark  mind,  and  not  by  any  means  the  kind  of  '  discoveries  * 
I  wanted  to  be  made  at  present.  *  Can  you  really  turn  a  ray  of 
light  on  its  axis  by  magnetism  ?  and  if  you  could,  what  should  I 
care  ? '  This  is  my  feeling  towards  most  of  the  scientific  triumphs 
and  unheard  of  progresses  and  miracles  so  trumpeted  abroad  in 
these  days,  and  I  sadly  keep  it  secret,  a  sorrowful  private  posses- 
sion of  my  own.  Saw  a  good  many  people  there,  ancient  friends 
of  mine,  to  whom  I  wished  right  well,  but  found  it  painful  to 
speak  beyond  mere  salutations.  Bishop  Thirlwall,  Sir  Henry  Hol- 
land, Dean  Stanley  and  his  wife.  Lecture  done,  I  hurried  away. 
Joined  by  Conway,  American  nigger  friend,  innocent  and  patient. 

February  6. — Nothing  yet  done,  as  usual.  Nothing.  Oh,  me 
misermn  !  Day,  and  days  past,  unusually  fine.  Health  in  spite  of 
sleeplessness,  by  no  means  very  bad.  Stand  to  thyself,  wretched, 
mourning,  heavj^-laden  creature.  For  others  there  is  no  want  of 
work  cut  out  for  me.  Yesterday,  by  our  beautiful  six  posts,  I  had 
the -following  demands  made  upon  me  :  To  write  about  Sir  William 
Hamilton ;  item  about  Stirling,  candidate  for  Edinburgh  Profes- 
sorship ;  item  to  write  about  poor  Clough.  Have  as  good  as  noth- 
ing to  say  either  about  Clough  or  Hamilton,  though  I  love  them 
both.     Just  before  bedtime,  news  from  a  young  man,  son  of  a  Mr. 

C ,  who  used  to  call  on  me,  and  thought  well  of  me,  that  he  is 

fallen  utterly  ruined  into  very  famine,  and  requests  that  I  should 
lend  him  ten  pounds;  Nine-tenths  of  the  letters  I  get  are  of  that 
tenour,  not  to  speak  of  requests  for  autographs,  exhortations  to  con- 
vert myself  or  else  be ;  which  latter  sort,  especially  which 

last,  I  i3urn  after  reading  the  first  line.  So  profitable  have  my 
epistolary  fellow-creatures  grown  to  me  in  these  years,  so  that 
when  the  postman  leaves  nothing  it  may  be  well  felt  as  an  escape. 
I  will  now  send  young  C— —  5/.  from  a  50/f.  I  am  steward  to. 


L(u^t  Siijht  of  thp  Grange.  313 

In  April  Tx)rd  Nortlibrook  wrote  to  invite  Carlyle  to 
spend  a  few  days  with  him  at  Stratton.  lie  liad  known 
Lord  Northbrook  in  tlie  old  Grange  time.  Stratton  was 
not  far  from  the  Grange,  and  there  was  a  sort  of  pleasure 
in  the  thought  of  seeing  it  again,  though  now  in  new 
hands.  He  was  unwell,  suffering  from  son-ow  'at  once 
poignant  and  impotent.'  In  agreeing  to  go  he  forgot  the 
approaching  anniversary,  the  fatal  April  21. 

It  strikes  me  now,  with  a  shadow  of  remorse  (he  wrote),  that 
Tuesday  will  be  the  21st,  and  that  I  shall  be  far  away  from  the 
place  in  Hyde  Park  to  which  I  would  have  walked  that  day.  I 
did  not  recollect  in  consenting,  or  perhaps  I  should  have  refused — 
certainly  should  have  paused  first.  But  alas  !  that  is  very  weak 
too.     The   place,  which  no  stranger  knows  of,   is  already  quite 

changed  :  drink  fountains,  &c.     I  was  there  yesterday,  but 

was  in  company.  I  could  only  linger  one  little  instant.  Ah  me  I 
how  weak  we  are !  Yesternight  I  read  in  the  newspapers  of  an 
old  man  who  had  died  of  grief  in  two  or  three  months  for  the  loss 
of  his  wife.  They  had  been  wedded  fifty-five  years.  And  of  an- 
other in  Pimlico  somewhere,  who,  on  like  ground,  had  stabbed 
himself  dead,  finding  life  now  unendurable. 

He  went  to  Stratton,  and,  except  that  as  usual  he  slept 
badly,  he  enjoyed  himself  and  'had  cause  to  be  grateful 
to  the  kind  people  round  him  and  the  kind  scenes  he  was 
among.'  The  anniversary  came  and  went.  '  All  passes  ;' 
'  time  and  the  hour  wear  out  the  gloomiest  day.' 

JoumaL 

April  27,  1868. — I  was  at  the  Grange  twice  over ;  all  vacant,  si- 
lent, strange  like  a  dream  ;  like  reality  become  a  dream.  I  sate 
in  the  church  (Northington)  with  my  two  companions,  Lords 
Northbrook  and  Sidney  G.  Osborne,  our  horses  waiting  the  wliile. 
Church  is  all  decorated,  new-imved  in  encaustic,  painted,  glazed 
in  coloured  figures,  inscribed,  &c.;  most  clean,  bright,  ornate  ;  on 
every  pew  a  sprig  of  rosemary,  &c.,  wholly  as  a  Temple  of  the 
Dead.  Such  the  piety  and  munificent  afiection  of  the  now  Dow- 
ager Lady  Ashburton.  I  sat  in  silence,  looking  and  remembering. 
The  ride  thither  and  back  was  peacefully  soothing  to  me.    An- 


314  Carlyle'S  L'^fe  in  London. 

otlier  day  the  two  boys  (Northbrook's  sons)  and  I  rode  that  way 
again;  pretty  galloping  for  most  part,  thither  and  from,  by  the 
woods,  over  the  down,  &c.  Strange,  strange  to  ride  as  through  a 
dream  that  once  was  so  real ;  pensive,  serious,  sombre,  not  pain- 
fully sorrowful  to  me.  It  is  again  something  as  if  solemnly  sooth- 
ing to  have  seen  all  this  for  probably  the  last  time. 

My  principal  or  almost  sole  fellow-guest  at  Stratton  was  '  the 
strange  Rev.  Lord  Sidney,'  named  above,  the  famous  S.  G.  O.  of 
the  newspajjers,  and  one  of  the  strangest  brother  mortals  I  ever 
met ;  a  most  lean,  tall,  and  perpendicular  man,  face  palj)ably  aris- 
tocrat, but  full  of  plebeian  mobilities,  free  and  easy  rapidities,  nice 
laughing  little  dark  grey  eyes,  careless,  honest,  full  of  native  in- 
genuity, sincerity,  innocent  vanity,  incessant  talk,  anecdotic,  per- 
sonal, distractedly  speculative,  oftenest  purposely  distracted,  never 
altogether  boring.  To  me  his  talk  had  one  great  property,  it 
saved  all  task  of  talking  on  my  part.  He  was  very  intrinsically 
polite  too,  and  we  did  very  well  together.^ 

Proof-sheets  of  the  new  edition  of  his  works  were  wait- 
ing for  liim  on  his  return  home.  He  '  found  himself 
w^illing  to  read  those  books  and  follow  the  printer  through 
them  as  ahnost  the  one  thing  lie  was  good  for  in  his  down- 
pressed  and  desolate  years.'  The  demand  for  tliem  '  was 
mainly  indiiferent'  to  him.  What  were  his  bits  of  works? 
What  was  anybody's  work  ?  '  Those  whom  he  wished  to 
please  were  sunk  into  the  grave.  The  works  and  their 
praises  and  successes  had  become  more  and  more  "re- 
miniscences "  merely.'  On  the  other  hand,  '  the  thought 
of  a  selection  from  Jier  letters  had  not  yet  quitted  him, 
nor  should.  Could  he  but  execute  it  well,  and  leave  it 
legible  behind  him,  to  be  printed  after  twenty  years.'  ^ 

The  selection  and  the  copying  was  taken  in  hand.     His 

^  A  letter  to  Miss  Bromley  contains  a  second  description  of  the  great  S.G  O. 
'  One  of  the  cheeriest,  airiest,  and  talkingest  lean  old  gentlemen  I  over  met 
with  in  my  life  ;  tall  as  a  steeple,  lean  as  a  bundle  of  flails,  full  of  wild  in- 
genuity, of  good  humour  and  good  purpose  ;  a  perfectly  honest,  human, 
headlong,  and  yet  strictly  aristocratic  man.  We  smoked  a  great  deal  of  to- 
bacco together.' 

2  In  his  will  of  1873  Carlyle  says  ten  or  seven  years,  and  finally  leaves  the 
time  of  publication  to  me.     Vide  infra,  p.  351. 


Passing  Meditations.  315 

passing  meditations  continued  meanwhile  to  be  entered  in 
his  Journal,  and  are  increasingly  interesting. 

Chelsea :  June  8,  1868. — One  was  bragging  to  me  the  other  day 
that  surely,  for  an  item  of  progress,  there  was  a  visibly  growing 
contempt  for  titles,  aristocmtic  and  other. '  I  answered  him  yes, 
indeed  ;  and  a  visible  decay  of  resj)ect  or  reverence  for  whatever 
is  above  one's  own  paltiy  self,  xi])  and  np  to  the  top  of  the  universe 
even,  up  to  Almighty  God  Himself  even,  if  you  will  look  well, 
which  is  a  more  frightful  kind  of  *  progress '  for  you. 

Seriously  the  speed  with  which  matters  are  going  on  in  this 
supreme  province  of  our  affairs  is  something  notable,  and  sadly 
undeniable  in  late  years.  The  name — old  Numen  withal — has  be- 
come as  if  obsolete  to  the  most  devout  of  us ;  and  it  is,  to  the 
huge  idly  impious  million  of  writing,  preaching,  and  talking 
people  as  if  the  /act  too  had  quite  ceased  to  be  certain.  '  The 
Eternities,'  *  the  Silences,'  &c.  I  myself  have  tried  various  shifts 
to  avoid  mentioning  the  *  Name '  to  such  an  audience — audience 
which  merely  sneers  in  return — and  is  more  con^^nced  of  its  de- 
lusion than  ever.  *  No  more  humbug  ! '  *  Let  us  go  ahead  !  * 
*  All  descended  from  gorillas,  seemingly.*  '  Sun  made  by  collision 
of  huge  masses  of  planets,  asteroids,  &c.,  in  the  infinite  of  space.* 
Very  possibly  say  I !  '  Then  where  is  the  place  for  a  Creator  ?  * 
The/oo/  hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God.  From  the  begin- 
ning it  has  been  so,  is  now,  and  to  the  end  will  be  so.  The  fool 
hath  said  it— he  and  nobody  else  ;  and  with  dismal  results  in  our 
days — as  in  all  days  ;  which  often  makes  me  sad  to  think  of,  com- 
ing nearer  myself  and  the  end  of  my  own  life  than  I  ever  expected 
they  would  do.*  Tliat  of  the  sun,  and  his  possibly  being  made  in 
that  manner,  seemed  to  me  a  real  triumph  of  science,  indefinitely 
widening  the  horizon  of  our  theological  ideas  withal,  and  awakened 
a  good  many  thoughts  in  me  when  I  first  heard  of  it,  and  grad- 
ually perceived  that  there  was  actual  scientific  basis  for  it — ^I  sup- 
pose the  finest  stroke  that  *  Science,*  poor  creature,  has  or  may 
have  succeeded  in  making  during  my  time — welcome  to  me  if  it 
be  a  truth — honourably  welcome  I     But  what  has  it  to  do  with  the 

*  The  Parliamentary  Whips  on  both  sides  are,  perhaps,  of  a  different  opinion 
as  to  tliis  supposed  contempt. 

*  Carlyle  did  not  deny  his  own  rcHponsibilities  in  the  matter.  In  his  de- 
sire to  extricate  the  kernel  from  the  shell  in  which  it  was  rotting,  he  had 
•haken  existing  beliefs  as  maoh  as  any  man,  and,  tie  admitted  to  me,  '  had 
give  a  oousiderable  shove  to  all  that' 


316  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

existence  of  tlie  Eternal  Unnameable?  Fools!  fools  !  It  widens 
tlie  horizon  of  my  imagination,  fills  me  with  deeper  and  deeper 
wonder  and  devout  awe. 

No  i)rayer,  I  find,  can  be  more  aj^propriate  still  to  express  one's 
feelings,  ideas,  and  wishes  in  the  highest  direction  than  that  uni- 
versal one  of  Pope  : — 

Father  of  all  in  every  age 

In  every  clime  adored, 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage, 

Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord. 

Thou  great  First  Cause,  least  understood^ 

Who  all  my  sense  confined, 
To  know  but  this,  that  Thou  art  good, 

And  that  myself  am  blind. 

Not  a  word  of  that  requires  change  for  me  at  this  time  if  words 
are  to  be  used  at  all.  The  first  devout  or  nobly  thinking  soul  that 
found  himself  in  this  unfathomable  universe — I  still  fancy  with  a 
strange  sympathy  the  first  insight  his  awe-stnick  meditation  gave 
him  in  this  matter.  '  The  Author  of  all  this  is  not  omnipotent 
only,  but  infinite  in  wisdom,  in.  rectitude,  in  all  noble  qualities. 
The  name  of  him  is  God  (the  good).'  How  else  is  the  matter  con- 
struable  to  this  hour?  All  that  is  good,  generous,  wise,  right — 
whatever  I  deliberately  and  for  ever  love  in  others  and  myself,  who 
or  what  could  by  any  possibility  have  given  it  to  me  but  One  who 
first  had  it  to  give  !  This  is  not  logic.  This  is  axiom.  Logic  to- 
and-fro  beats  against  this,  like  idle  wind  on  an  adamantine  rock. 
The  antique  first-thinker  naturally  gave  a  human  personality  and 
type  to  this  supreme  object,  yet  admitted  too  that  in  the  deepest 
depths  of  his  anthropomorphism, it  remained  'inconceivable,'  'past 
finding  out.'  Let  us  cease  to  attempt  shaping  it,  but  at  no  moment 
forget  that  it  veritably  is — in  this  day  as  in  the  first  of  the  days. 

It  was  as  a,  ray  of  everlasting  light  and  insight  this,  that  had 
shot  itself  zenithward  from  the  soul  of  a  man,  first  of  all  truly 
'  thinking  '  men,  struggling  to  interpret  for  himself  the  mystery  of 
his  as  yet  utterly  dark  and  unfathomable  world  ;  the  heghimng  of 
all  true  interpretation,  a  piece  of  insight  that  could  never  die  out 
of  the  world  thenceforth.  Strange,  high,  and  true  to  me  as  I  con- 
sider it  and  figure  it  to  myself  in  those  strange  newest  days — first 
real  aperture  made  through  the  utter  darkness,  revealing  far  aloft 
strange  skies  and  infinitudes.  *  Inspired  by  the  Almighty,'  men 
might  well  think.   What  else  is  it  in  all  times  that  '  giveth  men  un- 


Modem  Atheiarn,  317 

derstanding ' !  Tliis  *  aperture  zenithward,*  as  I  like  to  express  it, 
has  gone  on  slowly  widening  itself,  with  troublings  and  conf risings 
of  itself  sad  to  witness,  at  intervals  in  the  process  all  along — very 
witnessable  even  now.  But  it  has  steadily  gone  on,  and  is  essen- 
tially, under  conditions  ever  widening,  our  /(tithy  capable  of  being 
believed  by  oneself  alone  against  the  whole  world,  this  day  and  to 
the  end  of  days. 

Poor  '  Comtism,'  ghastliest  of  algebraic  spectralities — origin  of 
evil,  &o. — these  are  things  which,  much  as  I  have  struggled  with 
the  mysteries  surrounding  me,  never  broke  a  moment  of  my  rest. 
Mysterious !  be  it  so  if  you  will.  But  is  not  the  fact  clear  and 
certain  !  Is  it  a  *  mystery  *  you  have  the  least  chance  of  ever  get- 
ting to  the  bottom  of  !  Canst  tJiou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  I 
am  not  surprised  thou  canst  not,  vain  fool. 

These  things  are  getting  to  be  veiy  rife  again  in  these  late  years. 
'  Why  am  /,  the  miraculously  meritorious  "/,"  not  perfectly  happy 
then  ?  It  would  have  been  so  easy  :  and  see.'  That  I  perceive  is 
the  key-note  of  all  these  vehement  screechings  and  unmelodious, 
impious,  scrannel  pipings  of  poor  men,  verging  towards  apehood 
by  the  Dead  Sea  if  they  don't  stop  short. 

June  29. — The  other  morning  a  pamphlet  came  to  me  from  some 
orthodox  cultivated  scholar  and  gentleman — strictly  anonymous. 
Pamphlet  even  is  not  published,  only  printed.  The  many  excerpts, 
for  I  read  little  of  the  rest,  have  struck  me  much.  An  immense 
development  of  Atheism  is  clearly  proceeding,  and  at  a  rapid  rate, 
and  in  joyful  exultant  humour,  both  hero  and  in  France.  Some 
book  or  pamphlet  called  'The  Pilgrim  and  the  Shrine'  was 
copiously  quoted  from.  Pilgrim  getting  delivered  out  of  his  He- 
brew old  clothes  seemingly  into  a  Hottentot  costume  of  putrid 
tripes  hugely  to  his  satisfaction,  as  appeared.  French  medical 
prize  essay  of  young  gentleman,  in  similar  costume  or  worse,  de- 
claring *  we  come  from  monkeys.'  Virtue,  vice  are  a  product,  like 
vitriol,  like  vinegar ;  this,  and  in  general  that  human  nature  is 
rotten,  and  all  our  high  beliefs  and  aspirations  mud  !  See  it,  be- 
lieve it,  ye  fools,  and  proceed  to  make  yourselves  happy  upon  it ! 
I  had  no  idea  there  was  so  much  of  this  going  on  !  The  Logic  of 
Death  (English  pami)lilct)  had  already  sold  to  50,000  copies.  An- 
other English  thing  was  a  parody  on  tlie  Lord's  Prayer : — *  Instead 
of  praying  to  the  Lord  for  daily  bread,  ask  your  fellow-workmea 
why  wages  are  so  low,'  &c.,  kc. 

This  is  a  very  serious  omen,  and  might  give  rise  to  endless 


318  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

meditation.  If  tliey  do  abolish  *  God '  from  their  own  poor  be- 
wildered hearts,  all  or  most  of  them,  there  will  be  seen  for  some 
length  of  time  (perhaps  for  several  generations)  such  a  world  as 
few  are  dreaming  of.  But  I  never  dread  their  '  abolition  '  of  what 
is  the  Eternal  Fact  of  Facts,  and  can  prophesy  that  mankind  gener- 
ally will  either  return  to  that  with  new  clearness  and  sacred  purity 
of  zeal,  or  else  perish  utterly  in  unimaginable  depths  of  anarchic 
misery  and  baseness,  i.e.  sink  to  hell  and  death  eternal,  as  our 
fathers  said.  For  the  rest  I  can  rather  welcome  one  symptom 
clearly  traceable  in  the  phenomenon,  viz.,  that  all  people  have 
awoke  and  are  determined  to  have  done  with  cants  and  idolatries, 
and  have  decided  to  die  rather  than  live  longer  under  that  hate- 
fullest  and  bnitallest  of  sleepy  Upas  trees.  Eiige  I  euge  !  to  begin 
with.  And  there  is  another  thing  I  notice,  that  the  chosen  few 
wjbo  do  continue  to  believe  in  the  '  eternal  nature  of  duty,'  and 
are  in  all  times  and  all  places  the  God-appointed  rulers  of  this 
world,  will  know  at  once  who  the  sla-Ge  kind  are  ;  who,  if  good  is 
ever  to  begin,  must  be  excluded  totally  from  ruling,  and  in  fact,  be 
trusted  only  with  some  kind  of  collars  round  their  necks.  Cour- 
age !  courage  always  !  But  how  deep  are  we  to  go  ?  Through 
how  many  centuries,  how  many  abject  generations  will  it  probably 
last? 

September  8. — I  wish  Stirling  ^  would  turn  the  whole  strength  of 
his  faculty  upon  that  sad  question,  '  What  is  the  origin  of  morals?' 
Saddest  of  all  questions  to  the  people  who  have  started  it  again, 
and  are  evidently  going  to  all  lengths  with  it,  to  the  foot  of  the 
veiy  gallows,  I  believe,  if  not  stopt  sooner.  Had  I  a  little  better 
health,  I  could  almost  think  of  writing  something  on  it  myself. 
Stirling  probably  never  will,  nor  in  fact  can  metajyhysics  ever  settle 
it,  though  one  would  like  to  hear,  as  times  go,  what  of  clearest  and 
truest  poor  Metaphysics  had  to  say  on  it,  for  the  multitude  that 
put  their  trust  in  Metaphysics.  If  people  are  only  driven  upon 
virtuous  conduct,  duty,  &c.,  by  association  of  ideas,  and  there  is 
no  *  Infinite  Nature  of  Duty,'  the  world,  I  should  say,  had  better 
*  count  its  spoons  '  to  begin  with,  and  look  out  for  hurricanes  and 
earthquakes  to  end  with.  This  of  morality  by  'association  of 
ideas '  seems  to  me  the  grand  question  of  this  dismal  epoch  for  all 
thinking  souls  left.  That  of  stump  oratory — '  oh,  what  a  glorious 
speech  ! '  &c.,  and  the  inference  to  be  at  last  and  now  drawn  from 

1  Edinburgh  Stirliag,  author  of  the  '  Secret  of  HegeL* 


OraUyry.  319 

this  :  the  vnoKpitris — actio  of  Demosthenes ' — ter  optimum — is  the 
second  question  intimately  conuocted  with  the  former,  and  it 
seems  to  me  there  are  no  two  questions  so  pressing  upon  us  here 
and  now  as  these  two.  I  wish  sometimes  I  had  a  little  strength 
of  body  left — for  the  other  strength  is  perhaps  still  there,  as  the 
wish,  for  certain,  occasionally  is.  Wish  indeed !  "Wishing  is  very 
eheap,  and  at  bottom  neither  of  these  two  questions  is  what  I  am 
most  like  tiying  at  present. 

Tliis  matter  of  the  power  of  *  oratory '  was  much  in 
Carlyle's  mind  at  this  time ;  for  since  '  Niagara'  his  chief 
anxiety  centred  there.  As  democracy  grows  intensified, 
the  eloquent  speaker  who  can  best  please  the  ears  of  the 
multitude  on  provincial  platforms  will  more  and  more  be 
the  man  whom  they  will  most  admire  and  will  choose  to 
represent  them.  The  most  eloquent  will  inevitably,  for 
some  time  to  come,  be  the  most  powerful  minister  in  this 
country.  It  becomes  of  supreme  importance  therefore  to 
understand  what  oratory  is,  and  how  far  the  presence  of 
those  other  faculties  of  intellect  and  character  which  can 
be  trusted  with  the  administration  of  the  Empire  may  be 
inferred  from  the  possession  of  it.  It  was  the  sad  con- 
viction of  Carlyle  that  at  no  time  in  the  world's  history 
had  famous  orators  deserved  the  name  of  statesmen. 
Facts  had  never  borne  them  out.  They  had  been  always 
on  the  losing  side. 

Victrix  causa  Deis  placuit,  sed  victa  Catoni. 
Kor  had  they  been  themselves  true  men,  but  men  who 
had  lived  in  the  show  and  outsides  of  things,  not  in  the 
heart  and  essence  of  things.  The  art  of  speech  lies  in  bring- 
ing the  emotions  to  influence  the  judgment — to  influence 
it  by  *  assuming  a  feeling  if  you  have  it  not,'  by  persona- 
tion, by  uTTo/fpKTt?,  the  art  of  the  stage-player.     I  do  not 

'  Demosthenes,  wh«n  asked  what  was  the  fir<it  quaHfioation  of  orators,  ia 
said  by  Cicero  to  have  answered  Artio.  What  the  Booond?  Actio.  What  the 
third  ?  Artio.  It  is  asnaily  translated  action,  geHture.  But  it  means  all  the 
funotiona  of  an  actor^  geaiure  included.    Cicero,  De  Oratore^  paggitn. 


320  Cai'lyle^s  Life  in  London, 

suppose  that  Carlyle  had  ever  read  either  Plato's  *  Goi'gias ' 
or  Aristotle's  '  Politics.'  But,  on  his  own  grounds,  he  had 
come  to  the  same  conclusion.  Plato,  Aristotle,  had  seen 
in  the  Greek  republics  the  same  ascendency  of  popular 
orators  with  which  England  was  now  menaced.  It  was 
only  rarely  and  by  accident  that  the  power  in  purely  dem- 
ocratic communities  fell  into  the  hands  of  men  fit  to  hold 
it.  The  mobs  of  the  cities  chose  almost  invariably  men 
of  two  kinds,  and  neither  a  good  one ;  either  knaves  who 
played  upon  them  and  led  them  by  the  nose  for  personal 
or  party  objects,  or  men  who  were  themselves  the  victims 
of  the  passions  to  which  they  appealed,  who  lived  intoxi- 
cated with  their  own  verbosity,  who  had  no  judgment,  and 
no  criterion  of  truth,  save  that  it  must  be  something  which 
they  could  persuade  others  to  believe,  and  had  therefore 
no  power  of  recognising  truth  when  it  was  put  before 
them.  ProTn  this  cause  more  than  from  any  other  the 
Greek  constitutions  went  to  ruin,  as  the  Poman  did  after 
them.  The  ascendency  of  the  '  orator  '  was  the  unerring 
sign  of  the  approaching  catastrophe.  Plato  compared 
oratory  to  the  art  of  the  fashionable  cook  who  flavoured 
his  poisonous  messes  to  tempt  the  palate.  Aristotle  says 
that  all  forms  of  government  have  their  special  pai-asites, 
which  are  bred  by  them,  and  destroy  them.  Kings  and 
emperors  are  misled  by  favourites  who  flatter  them.  The 
orator  is  the  parasite  of  the  mob ;  he  thrives  on  its  favour, 
and  therefore  never  speaks  unpleasant  truths  to  it.  A 
king  may  be  wnse  and  may  choose  prudent  councillors. 
A  democracy  from  its  nature  never  can.  This  was  the 
opinion  of  the  great  Greeks,  and  Cicero,  though  he  fought 
against  the  conviction,  felt  the  truth  of  it. 

The  orator  was  like  a  soldier  trained  in  the  use  of  arms, 
and  able  to  use  them,  either  for  good  purposes  or  for  bad. 
Antonius,  the  first  master  of  the  art  in  Rome,  discusses 
the  qualifications  for  success  in  Cicero's  '  Dialogue '  with 


Oratory,  321 

delicate  hnmonr.  He  supposes  a  case  where  he  has  to 
persuade  an  audience  of  something  whicli  he  knows  to  be 
false.  Fire,  he  says,  can  only  be  kindled  by  fire.  The 
skilfullest  acting  cannot  equal  the  lire  of  real  conviction. 
But  so  happily,  Antonius  says,  is  the  orator's  nature  con- 
stituted that  when  he  has  taken  up  a  cause  with  eagerness 
he  cannot  help  believing  in  it.  He  surrounds  himself 
with  an  atmosphere  of  moral  sentiments  and  common- 
places, and,  being  possessed  with  these  sublime  emotions, 
he  pours  them  out  in  the  triumphant  confidence  of  a  con- 
viction, for  the  moment  sincere.'  Such  a  man,  or  such  a 
species  of  man,  is  certain  to  be  found,  and  certain  to  be  in 
front  place,  omnipotent  for  mischief  under  all  democratic 
constitutions.  He  leads  the  majority  along  with  him,  and 
rules  by  superior  numbers  ;  while  to  men  of  understanding, 
who  are  not  blinded  by  his  glowing  periods,  he  appears, 
as  he  really  is,  a  transparent  charlatan.  Demosthenes 
himself  admitted  that  if  he  was  speaking  only  to  Plato  his 
tongue  would  fail  him ;  and  it  is  a  bad  augury  for  any 
country  when  matters  of  weight  and  consequence  are  de- 
termined by  arguments  to  which  only  the  unintelligent 
can  listen.  The  ominous  ascendency  of  this  quality,  illus- 
trated as  it  was  in  the  persons  of  the  two  rival  chiefs  of 
the  political  parties  in,  England,  was  a  common  topic  of 
Carlyle's  talk  in  his  late  years,  and  appears  again  and 
again  in  his  diary. 

Meantime  his  life  fell  back  into  something  like  its  old 
routine.  While  his  strength  lasted  he  went  annually  to 
Scotland  ;  never  so  happy  as  among  his  own  kindred.  Yet 
even  among  them  he  was  less  happy  than  sadly  peaceful. 

I  '  Maf[na  vis  est  earum  sententiarum  atque  corum  locorum,  quos  agas  traot- 
esque  dioendo,  nihil  lit  opu8  sit  aimulationc  ct  fallaciis.  Ipsa  enim  natura 
orationia  ejus,  quae  suscipitnr  ad  alionim  anitnos  permovendos,  oratorem 
ipsom  ma^M  ctiain,  quam  quemqoam  eorum  qui  audiunt,  permovet.'  Dt  Ora- 
tore^  lib.  ii.  cap.  46. 

Vol.  IV.^31 


3^  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

'  Pity  me,'  he  writes  to  Miss  Bromlej,  September  8, 1868, 
from  Dumfries : — - 

Nay,  I  don't  see  how  you  are  quite  to  avoid  despising  me  as  well. 
I  was  never  so  idle  in  my  life  before  ;  but  the  region  here  is  very 
beautiful,  in  the  beautiful  weather  we  again  have  ;  and  to  me  it  is 
not  beautiful  only,  but  almost  supernatural,  like  the  Valley  of 
Mirza  with  its  river  and  bridge.  The  charm  of  sauntering  about 
here  like  a  disembodied  ghost,  peacefully  mournful,  peacefully 
meditative,  is  considerable  in  comparison,  and  I  repugn  against 
quitting  it. 

On  getting  back  to  London  he  worked  in  earnest  in 
sorting  and  annotating  his  wife's  letters.  His  feeling  and 
purpose  about  them,  as  it  stood  then,  is  thus  expressed  in 
his  journal : — 

To  be  kept  unprinted  for  ten  or  twenty  yeai*s  after  my  death,  if, 
indeed,  printed  at  all,  should  there  be  any  babbling  of  memory 
still  afloat  about  me  or  her.  That  is  at  present  my  notion.  At 
any  rate,  they  shall  be  left  legible  to  such  as  they  do  concern,  and 
shall  be  if  I  live.  To  her,  alas  !  it  is  no  service,  absolutely  none, 
though  -my  poor  imagination  represents  it  as  one,  and  I  go  on  with 
it  as  something  pious  and  indubitably  right ;  that  some  memory 
and  image  of  one  so  beautifvd  and  noble  should  not  fail  to  survive 
by  my  blame,  unworthy  as  I  was  of  her,  yet  loving  her  far  more 
than  I  could  ever  show,  or  even  than  I  myself  knew  till  it  was  too 
late — too  late. 

Occasional  rides  on  Miss  Bromley's  Comet  formed  his 
chief  afternoon,  occupation  ;  but  age  was  telling  on  his 
seat  and  hand,  and  Comet  and  Carlyle's  riding  were  both 
near  their  end. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  October  9,  1868. 
Riding  is  now  fairly  over.  Above  a  week  ago  I  had  the  once 
gallant  little  Comet  brought  down  to  me  here  ;  delighted  to  see 
me  the  poor  creature  seemed.  But  alas  !  idleness,  darkness,  and 
abundant  oats  had  undermined  and  hebetated  and,  in  fact,  ruined 
the  once  glorious  Comet ;  so  that  in  about  half-an-hour,  roads 
good,  riding  gentlest  and  carefullest,  the  glorious  Comet  splashed 


Riding  Accident.  323 

utterly  down — cnt  eye,  brow,  and  both  knees — horse  and  rider 
fairly  ti-aciug  out  their  united  profile  on  the  soil  of  Middlesex  in 
the  Holland  House  region.  Silent,  elegant  new  street,  hardly  any- 
one seeing  the  phenomenon.  As  I  stuck  by  the  horse  through  his 
sprawlings,  I  had  come  down  quite  gradually,  right  stirrup  rather 
advanced  ;  so  that  I  got  no  injury  whatever,  scarcely  even  a  little 
dirt.     I  silently  perceived  this  must  be  my  last  ride  on  Ck)met. 

The  marvel  was  that  he  had  been  able  to  continue  rid- 
ing to  so  advanced  an  age,  and  had  not  met  long  before 
with  a  more  serious  accident.  He  rode  loosely  always. 
His  mind  was  always  abstracted.  He  liad  been  fortunate 
in  his  different  horses.  They  had  been  *very  clever  creat- 
ures.'    This  was  his  only  explanation. 

Another  incident  befell  him  in  the  beginning  of  1869, 
of  a  more  pleasing  kind.  He  received  an  intimation  from 
Dean  Stanley  that  her  Majesty  would  like  to  become  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  a  man  of  whom  she  had  heard  so 
mucli,  and  in  whose  late  sorrows  she  had  been  so  inter- 
ested. He  was  not  a  courtier  ;  no  one  could  suspect  him 
of  seeking  the  favour  of  the  great  of  this  world,  royal  or 
noble.  But  for  the  Queen  throughout  his  life  he  had  en- 
tertained always  a  loyal  respect  and  pity,  wishing  only 
that  she  could  be  less  enslaved  by  *  the  talking  apparatus' 
at  Westminster.  He  had  felt  for  her  in  her  bereavement, 
as  slie  had  remembered  him  in  his  own. 

The  meeting  was  at  the  Westminster  Deanery : — 

The  Queen  [he  says  of  it]  was  really  very  gracious  and  pretty  in 
her  demeanour  throughout ;  rose  greatly  in  my  esteem  by  every- 
thing that  hapi^ened  ;  did  not  fall  in  any  point.  The  interview 
was  quietly  very  mournful  to  me  ;  the  one  point  of  real  interest,  a 
sombre  thought :  '  Alas !  how  woiUd  it  have  cheered  her,  bright 
Boul,  for  my  sake,  had  she  been  there  ! ' 

A  less  flattering  distinction  was  Watts's  portrait  of  him, 
lately  finished  for  .T(»hn  Forster,  and  the  engraving  of  it, 
which  was  now  being  proceeded  with.  Of  the  picture 
itself  his  opinion,  as  conveyed  to  his  brother,  was  not  flat- 


324r  Cm^lyWs  Life  in  London. 

tering.  The  failure  may  have  been  dne  to  the  subject,  for 
no  painter,  not  even  Millais,  ever  succeeded  with  Carljle. 
This  particular  performance  he  calls 

Decidedly  the  most  insuiferable  piettire  that  has  yet  been  made 
of  me,'  a  delirions-looking  mountebank  full  of  violence,  awkward- 
ness, atrocity,  and  stupidity,  without  recognisable  likeness  to  any- 
thing I  have  ever  known  in  any  feature  of  me.  Fuit  in  fatis. 
What  care  I,  after  all  ?  Forster  is  much  content.  The  fault  of 
Watts  is  a  j)assionate  pursuit  of  strength.  Never  mind,  never 
mind ! 

In  the  spring  he  was  troubled  by  want  of  sleep  again  ; 
the  restlessness  being  no  doubt  aggravated  by  the  '  Let- 
ters,' and  by  the  recollections  which  they  called  up.  Pub- 
lic opinion,  politics,  the  tone  of  the  press,  of  literature 
generally,  the  cant  of  progress,  daily  growing  louder,  all 
tended  too  to  irritate  him.  Some  scientific  article,  I  think 
in  the  '  Fortnightly,'  was  '  disgusting  and  painful '  to  him  ; 
'  tells  me  nothing  new  either,'  he  noted,  '  however  logical 
and  clear,  that  I  did  not  know  before,  viz.  that  to  the  eye 
of  clay  spirit  is  for  ever  invisible.  Pah  !  nasty  !  needless 
too.  "  A  little  lower  than  the  angels,"  said  Psalmist  Da- 
vid ;  "  A  little  higher  than  the  tadpoles,"  says  Evangelist 

."'     'These  people,'  he  said  to  me,  'bring  yon  what 

appears  the  whitest  beautifullest  flour  to  bake  your  bread 
with,  but  when  you  examine  it  you  find  it  is  jpoxodered 
glass^  and  deadly  poison.' 

The  '  Letters,'  however,  and  his  own  occupation  with 
them,  were  the  absorbing  interest,  although-  to  me  at  this 
time  he  never  mentioned  the  subject. 

Journal. 

April  29,  1869. — Perhaps  this  mournful,  but  pious,  and  ever  in- 
teresting task,  escorted  by  such  miseries,  night  after  night,  and 
month  after  month — perhaps  all  this  may  be  wholesome  punish- 
ment, purification,  and  monition,  and  again  a  blessing  in  disguise, 

*  Not  excepting  the  flayed  horse  ! 


Mrs,  Carlyya  Letters.  325 

I  have  had  many  such  in  my  life.  Some  strange  belief  in  an  actual 
pai'ticular  Providence  riaes  always  in  me  at  intervals,  faint  but  in- 
destructible belief  in  spite  of  logic  and  arithmetic,  which  does  me 
good.  If  it  be  true  and  a  fact,  as  Kant  and  the  clearest  scientitic 
people  keep  asserting,  that  there  is  no  Time  and  no  Space,  I  say 
to  myself  sometimes  all  minor  *  Logic '  and  counting  by  the  lingers 
becomes  in  such  provinces  an  incompetent  thing.  Believe  what 
thou  must,  that  is  a  rule  that  needs  no  enforcing. 

July  2-t,  1869.— In  spite  of  impediments  we  aie  now  getting  done 
with  that  sacred  task.  In  a  month  more,  if  permitted  still,  I  can 
hope  to  see  the  whole  of  those  dear  letter.<  lying  legible  to  good 
eyes,  with  the  needful  commentaries,  for  which  ought  not  I  to  be 
thankful  as  for  a  chosen  mercy.  .  .  .  My  impediments,  how- 
ever, have  been  almost  desperate ;  ignorance,  unpunctuality, 
sluggish  torpor  on  the  part  of  assistants,  all  hanging  about  my 
weak  neck,  doi>ending  on  me  to  push  it  tlirough  or  to  leave  it  stick- 
ing. In  fact,  this  has  been  to  me  a  heavy-laden  miserable  time, 
impeded  to  me  as  none  ever  was  by  myself  and  others — others  ever 
since  October  last.  But  I  will  speak  of  it  no  more.  Thank  God 
if  this  thing  be  got  done. 

Addiscombe  seems  to  have  been  again  offered  to  him, 
as  an  escape  this  summer  from  London,  if  he  cared  to  go 
thitlier. 

September  28,  1869. — The  old  story.  Addiscombe  and  Chelsea 
alteraating,  without  any  result  at  all  but  idle  misery  and  want  of 
sleep,  risen  lately  to  almost  the  intolerable  pitch.  Dreary  boring 
beings  in  the  lady's  time  tised  to  infest  the  place  and  scare  me 
home  again.  Place  empty^  lady  gone  to  the  Highlands,  and,  still 
bountifully  pressing,  we  tried  it  lately  by  removing  bpdily  thither.' 
Try  it  for  three  weeks,  said  we,  and  did.  Nothing  but  insomina 
there,  alas  !  Yesterday  morning  gone  a  week,  we  struck  flag  again 
and  removed  all  home.  Enteiprise  to  me  a  total  failure.  .  .  . 
The  Uisk  in  a  sort  done,  Mary  finishing  my  notes  of  1860  this  very 
day  ;  I  shrinking  for  weeks  past  from  any  revisal  or  interference 
liere  as  a  thing  evidently  hurtful,  evidently  antisomnial  even,  in 
my  present  state  of  nerves.  Essentially,  however,  her  *  Letters 
and  Memorials '  are  saved,  thank  God  !  and  I  hope  to  settle  the 
details  calmly,  too. 

>  '  TV'  '  mcanH  himtielf,  his  brother,  and  his  nieoe,  Ifiu  Mary  Aiiken,  who 
was  now  with  him. 


5^  Carlyl^s  Life  in  London, 

This  is  the  last  mention  of  these  \  Letters,'  &c.,  in  the 
Journal.  I,  as  I  said,  had  heard  nothing  about  them  ;  and 
though  I  was  aware  that  he  was  engaged  in  some  way  with 
his  autobiography,  I  had  no  conjecture  as  to  what  it  was. 
Finished  in  a  sort  the  collection  was,  but  it  needed  close 
revision,  and  there  was  an  introductory  narrative  still  to 
be  written.  Carlyle,  however,  could  then  touch  it  no 
further,  nor  did  a  time  ever  come  wdien  he  felt  himself 
equal  to  taking  it  up  again.  It  was  tied  together  and  laid 
aside  for  the  present,  and  no  resolution  was  then  formed 
as  to  what  was  to  be  done  with  it. 

This  subject  being  off  his  mind,  he  was  able  to  think 
more  calmly  of  ordinary  things.  Ruskin  was  becoming 
more  and  more  interesting  to  him.  Ruskin  seemed  to  be 
catching  the  fiery  cross  from  his  hand,  as  his  own  strength 
was  failing.  Writing  this  autumn  to  myself,  he  said, 
'  One  day,  bj^  express  desire  on  both  sides,  I  had  Ruskin 
for  some  hours,  really  interesting  and  entertaining.  He 
is  full  of  projects,  of  generous  prospective  activities,  some 
of  which  I  opined  to  him  would  prove  chimerical.  There 
is,  in  singular  environment,  a  ray  of  real  Heaven  in  R. 
Passages  of  that  last  book  "  Queen  of  the  Air"  went  into 
my  heart  like  arrows.' 

The  Journal  during  the  same  month  becomes  soft  and 
melodious,  as  if  the  sense  of  a  duty  heroically  performed 
had  composed  and  consoled  him. 

October^. — For  a  week  past  I  am  sleeping  better,  which  is  a 
special  mercy  of  Heaven.  I  dare  not  yet  believe  that  sleep  is 
regularly  coming  back  to  me  ;  but  only  tremulously  hope  so  now 
and  then.  If  it  does,  I  might  still  write  something.  My  poor  in- 
tellect seems  all  here,  only  crashed  down  under  a  general  ava- 
lanche of  things /om(7n  to  it.  Men  have  at  one  time  felt  that  they 
had  an  immortal  soul,  have  they  not  ?  Physical  obstruction,  tor- 
ture of  nerves,  &c.,  carried  to  a  certain  pitch  is  insuperable.  All 
the  rest  I  could  take  some  charge  of,  but  this  fairly  beats 
me ;  and  the  utmost  I  can  do — could  I  always  achieve  even  that, 


Journal.  327 

"which  I  can't  almost  ever — is  to  be  silent,  to  be  inert  and  patient 
under  it.  The  sonrs  sorrow  that  I  have,  too,  is  notable,  pcrha])8 
singular.  At  no  moment  can  I  forget  my  loss,  nor  wish  to  do  it  if 
I  could.  Singular  how  the  death  of  one  has  smitten  all  the  Uni- 
verse dead  to  me.  Morbid  ?  I  sometimes  ask,  and  possibly  it  is. 
But  in  that  sadness  for  my  loved  one — to  whom  now  sometimes 
join  themselves  my  mother,  father,  &c. — there  is  a  piety  and  silent, 
patient  tenderness  which  does  hold  of  the  divine.  How  dumb  are 
all  these  things  grown  in  the  now  beaverish  and  merely  gluttonous 
life  of  man !  A  very  sordid  world,  my  masters  I  Yes.  But 
what  hast  thou  to  do  with  it  ?  Nothing.  Pass  on.  Still  save 
thy  poor  self  from  it  if  possible.  .  .  .  Am  reading  Versti- 
gan's  '  Decayed  Intelligence  '  night  after  night,  with  wonder  at  the 
curious  bits  of  correct  etymology  and  real  sense  and  insight,  float- 
ing about  among  masses  of  mere  darkness  and  quasi-imbecility. 
It  is  certain  we  have  in  these  two  centuries  greatly  improved  in 
our  geologies,  in  our  notions  of  the  early  history  of  man.  Have 
got  rid  of  Moses,  in  fact,  which  surely  was  no  very  sublime 
achievement  either.  I  often  think,  however,  it  is  pretty  much  cdL 
that  science  in  this  age  has  done,  or  is  doing. 

October  14. — Three  nights  ago,  stepping  out  after  midnight,  with 
my  final  pipe,  and  looking  up  into  the  stars,  which  were  clear  and 
numerous,  it  stnick  me  with  a  strange  new  kind  of  feeling.  Hah  ! 
in  a  little  while  I  shall  have  seen  you  also  for  the  last  time.  God 
Almighty's  own  Theatre  of  Immensity,  the  Infinite  made  palpable 
and  visible  to  me,  that  also  will  be  closed,  flung  to  in  my  face,  and 
I  shall  never  behold  that  either  any  more.  And  I  knew  so  little 
of  it,  real  as  was  my  effort  and  desire  to  know.  The  thought  of 
this  eternal  deprivation — even  of  this,  though  this  is  such  a  nothing 
in  comparison — was  sad  and  jminful  to  me.  And  then  a  second 
feeling  rose  on  me,  *  What  if  Omnii>otence,  which  has  developed 
in  me  these  pieties,  these  reverences  and  infinite  affections,  should 
actually  have  said,  Yes,  poor  mortals.'  Such  of  you  as  liave  gone 
so  far  shall  be  peraiitted  to  go  farther.  Hope.  Despair  not !  I 
have  not  had  such  a  feeling  for  many  years  back  as  at  that  mo- 
ment, and  so  mark  it  here. 

With  his  thoughts  thus  travelling  into  the  far  Infinities, 
Carlyle  could  scarcely  care  long,  if  he  could  care  at  all,  for 
tlie  details  of  the  progress  of  English  political  disintegra- 
tion.    Yet  he  did  observe  with  contemptuous  indignation 


328  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

the  development  of  the  Irish  policy  bj  the  Pi*ime  Minis- 
ter, and  speculated  on  the  construction  of  a  mind  which 
could  persuade  itself  and  others  that  such  a  policy  was 
right.     It  was  the  fatal  oratorical  faculty. 

Journal 

November  11th,  1869. — If  vnoKpKTis^  *  hypocrisy ' '  be  the  first, 
second,  and  third  thing  in  eloquence,  as  I  think  it  is,  then  why 
have  it  at  all  ?  Why  not  insist,  as  a  first  and  inexorable  condition, 
that  all  speech  be  a  reality  ;  that  every  speaker  be  verily  what  he 
pretends  or  play-acts  to  be  ?  I  can  see  no  outlet  from  this.  Grant 
the  Demosthenic  dictum,  this  inference,  this,  were  there  nothing 
else  urging  it,  inexorably  follows  as  the  very  -next.  Experience, 
too — e.g.,  Oliver  Cromwell's  speeches.  So  soon  as  by  long  scan- 
ning you  can  read  them  clearly,  nowhere  in  the  world  did  I  find 
such  persuasion,  such  powers  of  compelling  belief,  there  and  then, 
if  you  did  really  hear  with  open  ear  and  heart.  Duke  of  Wellington  ! 
I  heard  him  just  once  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  The  whole  House 
of  Lords  had  spoken  in  Meliboean  strains  for  two  or  three  hours ; 
might  have  spoken  so  for  two  or  three  centuries  without  the  least 
result  to  me.  vnoKpia-is  not  good  enough.  Wellington  hawking, 
haing,  humming — the  worst  speaker  I  had  ever  heard — etched  and 
scratched  me  out  gradually  a  recognisable  portrait  of  the  fact,  and 
was  the  only  noble  lord  who  had  spoken  at  all."^  These  are  accurate 
facts  familiar  to  my  thoughts  for  many  years  back,  and  might  be 
pointed  out  far  more  vividly  than  here  in  the  actual  features  they 
have.  Can  so  many  doctors,  solemn  pedants,  and  professors  for 
some  2,000  years  past — can  Longinus,  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  and 
all  the  imiversities,  parliaments,  stump  oratories,  and  spouting 
places  in  this  lower  w^orld  be  unanimously  wearing,  instead  of 
aureoles  round  their  heads,  long  ears  on  each  side  of  it  ?  Unani- 
mously sinning  against  Nature's  fact,  and  stultifying  and  confiscat- 
ing themselves  and  their  sublime  classical  labours.  I  privately 
have  not  the  least  doubt  of  it,  but  possess  no  means  of  saying  so 
with  advantage.  Time,  I  believe,  will  say  so  in  the  coui'se  of  cer- 
tain centuries  or  decades  emphatically  enough. 

November  ISth. — A  second  thing  I  will  mark. 

^  ujTOKpiT^s  is  the  Greek  word  for  '  actor.' 

2  This  is  precisely  what  Plato  means.  Truth,  however  plainly  spoken,  con- 
vinces the  intelligent.  The  orator  speaks  fv  rots  ova  eiSoos  among  the  not  in- 
telligent, and  requires  sonneting  else  than  truth. 


Modem  Atheism.  329 

The  qnaniities  of  potential  and  even  consciously  increasing 
Atheism,  sprouting  out  everywhere  in  these  days,  is  enormous. 
In  every  scientific  or  quasi-scientific  periodical  one  meets  it.  By 
the  last  American  mail  I  had  two  eloquent,  determined,  and 
calmly  zealous  declarations  of  it.  In  fact,  there  is  clear  prophecy 
to  me  that  in  another  fifty  years  it  will  be  the  new  religion  to  the 
whole  tribe  of  hard-hearted  and  hard-headed  men  in  this  world, 
who,  for  their  time,  bear  practical  rule  in  the  world's  affairs.  Not 
only  all  Christian  churches  but  all  Christian  religion  are  nodding 
towaids  speedy  downfall  in  this  Europe  that  now  is.  Figure  the 
residuum :  man  made  chemically  out  of  UrscUeim,  or  a  ceiiain 
blubber  coMedi  prot(^l(mn.  Man  descended  from  the  apes,  or  the 
shell-fish.  Virtue,  duty,  or  utility  an  association  of  ideas,  and  the 
corollaries  from  all  that.  France  is  amazingly  advanced  in  that 
career.  England,  America,  are  making  still  more  passionate  speed 
to  come  up  with  her,  to  pass  her,  and  be  the  vanguard  of  progress. 
What  I  had  to  note  is  this  only :  that  nobody  need  argue  with 
these  people,  or  can  with  the  least  effect.  Logic  never  will  decide 
the  matter,  or  will  decide  it — seem  to  decide  it — their  way.  He 
who  traces  nothing  of  God  in  his  own  soul,  will  never  find  God  in 
the  world  of  matter — mere  circlings  oi  force  there,  of  iron  regula- 
tion, of  universal  death  and  merciless  indifferency.  Nothing  but 
a  dead  steam-engine  there.  It  is  in  the  soul  of  man,  when  rever- 
ence, love,  intelligence,  magnanimity  have  been  develoi)ed  there, 
that  the  Highest  can  disclose  itself  face  to  face  in  sun-splendour, 
independent  of  all  cavils  and  jargonings.  There,  of  a  surety,  and 
nowhere  else.  And  is  not  that  the  real  court  for  such  a  cause  ? 
Matter  itself — the  outer  world  of  matter — is  either  Nothing  or  else 
a  product  due  to  man's  viind.  To  Mind,  all  questions,  especially 
this  question,  come  for  ultimate  decision,  as  in  the  universal 
highest  and  final  Court  of  Appeal.  I  wish  all  this  could  be  de- 
veloped, universally  set  forth,  and  put  on  its  true  basis.  Alas  !  I 
myself  can  do  nothing  with  it,  but  perhaps  others  will. 

December  Uhy  1869. — This  is  my  seventy-fourth  birthday.  For 
seventy-four  years  have  I  now  lived  in  this  world.  That  is  a  fact 
awakening  cause  enough  for  reflection  in  the  dullest  man.  .  .  . 
If  this  be  my  last  birthday,  as  is  often  not  improbable  to  me,  may 
the  Eternal  Father  grant  that  I  be  ready  for  it,  fi-ail  worm  that  I 
am.     Nightly  I  look  at  a  certain  photograph — at  a  certain  toTnb  * — 

*  Photograph  of  the  interior  of  Haddington  Church  and  Hrs.  Garlyle's  rest- 
ing-place th«ra. 


330  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

the  last  thing  I  do.  Most  times  it  is  with  a  mere  feeling  of  dull 
woe,  of  endless  love,  as  if  choked  under  the  inexorable.  In  late 
weeks  I  occasionally  feel  able  to  wish  with  my  whole  softened 
heart — it  is  my  only  form  of  prayer — '  Great  Father,  oh,  if  Thou 
canst,  have  pity  on  her  and  on  me,  and  on  all  such.'  In  this  at  least 
there  is  no  harm.  The  fast-increasing  flood  of  Atheism  on  me 
takes  no  hold — does  not  even  wet  the  soles  of  my  feet.  I  totally 
disbelieve  it ;  despise  as  well  as  abhor  it  ;  nor  dread  that  it  ever 
can  prevail  as  a  doom  of  the  sons  of  men.  Nay,  are  there  not 
perhaps  temporary  necessities  for  it,  inestimable  future  uses  in  it  ? 
Patience  !  patience  !  and  hope  !  The  new  diabolic  school  of  the 
French  is  really  curious  to  me.  Beaudelaire  for  example.  Ode 
of  his  in  '  Fraser  '  the  other  night.  Was  there  ever  anything  so 
bright  infernal  ?     Fleurs  du  Mai  indeed  ! 

January  list,  1870. — It  is  notable  how  Atheism  spreads  among 

*Us  in  these  days.     's  protoplasm  (unpleasant  doctrine  that  we 

are  all,  soul  and  body,  made  of  a  kind  of  blubber,  found  in 
nettles  among  other  organisms)  appears  to  be  delightful  to  many  ; 
and  is  raising  a  great  crop  of  atheistic  speech  on  the  shallower  side 

of  English  spiritualism  at  present.    One ,  an  army  surgeon,  has 

continued  writing  to  me  on  these  subjects  from  all  quarters  of 
the  world  a  set  of  letters,  of  which,  after  the  first  two  or  three, 
which  indicated  an  insane  vanity,  as  of  a  stupid  cracked  man,  and 
a  dull  impiety  as  of  a  brute,  I  have  never  read  beyond  the  open- 
ing word  or  two,  and  then  the  signature,  as  prologue  to  immediate 
fire  ;  everyone  of  which  nevertheless  gives  me  a  moment  of  pain, 
of  ghastly  disgust,  and  loathing   pity,  if  it  be  not  anger,  too,  at 

this  poor and  his  life.     Yesterday  there  came  a  pamphlet, 

published  at  Lewes,  by  some  moral  philosopher,  there  called 
Julian,  which,  on  looking  into  it,  I  find  to  be  a  hallelujah  on  the 
advent  and  discovery  of  atheism  ;  and  in  particular,  a  crowning 

— with  cabbage  or  I  know  not  what — of  this  very .     The  real 

joy  of  Julian  was  what  surprised  me — sincere  joy  you  would  have 
said — like  the  shout  of  a  hysena  on  finding  that  the  whole  uni- 
verse was  actually  carrion.  In  about  seven  minutes  my  great 
Julian  was  torn  in  two  and  lying  in  the  place  fit  for  him. 

The  '  Diabolic '  sometimes  visited  Carljle  in  actual  form. 
One  day  in  IS^ovember  this  year,  an  apparently  well -con- 
ditioned gentleman  waited  upon  him  with  a  request  for 
help  in  some  local  Chelsea  charity.     A  sovereign  was  at 


Strange  Ajfplicatiofts,  88t 

once  forthcoming.  Tlie  man  went,  and  ten  minutes  after 
he  <li8covered  that  the  plausible  stranger  was  a  ticket-of- 
leave  man,  and  that  lie  himself  had  been  a  *  nose  of  wax.' 
Too  late  he  remembered  an  air  of  *  varnished  devilry '  in 
the  fellow.  *  Well !  well ! '  he  reflected,  *  jou  nmst  just  take 
your  just  wages  whatever  mortification  there  is.'  The  hand- 
some scandalous  face  came  back  to  him  at  night  in  a  half- 
waking  dream.  '  Hah  I '  he  thought, '  I  had  a  personal  visit 
of  the  Devil  too,  as  poor  St.  Culm  had  many ;  and  slept 
oif  with  something  of  real  pity  for  this  miserable  Devil  of 
mine.'  The  fraud  was  itself  a  tribute  to  his  known  good- 
nature. But  he  had  better  evidences  of  the  light  in  which 
the  world  now  looked  on  him.  *  The  marks  of  respect,'  he 
said,  *of  loving  regard  and  praise  in  all  forms  of  it,  that 
come  to  me  here,  are  a  surprise,  an  almost  daily  aston- 
ishment and  even  an  embarrassment  to  me,  though  I  an- 
swer uniformly  nothing ;  so  undeserved  they  seem,  so 
excessive,  so  wildly  overdone.'  One  letter  I  insert  here 
from  a  person  who  sought  him  as  a  ghostly  father  under 
singular  circumstances ;  an  endorsement  shows  that  he 
did  answer  it,  though  what  he  said  can  only  be  conjectured. 

To  Thomas  Carlyle. 

1860. 

Sir, — As  I  learned  from  the  note  that  Mrs. received  from 

you  that  you  were  not  unwilling  to  pay  some  attention  to  what  I 
might  have  to  say,  I  have  ventured  to  trouble  you  with  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  my  wretched  state.  It  is  not  without  horrible 
misgivings  that  I  do  it.  But  you  miist  know  the  nature  of  my  com- 
plaint to  enable  you  to  prescribe  a  remedy,  if  remedy  there  be 
for  it  Know  then  the  secret  of  all  my  sorrows  and  my  hardships. 
I  am  ugly — I  had  abnost  said  hideous — to  behold.  Oh  what  a 
devilish  misfortune  to  be  sent  into  the  world  ugly.  How  oft«»n 
do  I  curse  the  day  of  my  birth.  How  often  do  I  curse  the  mother 
that  brought  mo  into  this  world  out  of  nothingness  into  hellish 
misery — aye,  and  often  do  more  tlian  curse  her. 

I  have  no  frionds  or  companions  ;  all  shun  and  despise  nie. 
As  I  cannot  share  iXiii  pleasures  and  enjoyments  of  those  around 


332  Carlyle's  Life  m  London. 

me,  I  have  sought  to  beguile  away  my  time  with  books.  My 
mental  capacities  are  near  zero,  so  I  read  them  to  little  purpose  ; 
yet  they  have  aroused  in  me  dim  ideas  of  something  I  cannot 
express — something  that  almost  makes  me  glad  I  am  in  the  world. 
I  do  not  like  to  go  and  seek  work  (necessity  compels  me  some- 
times), for  I  cannot  bear  the  taunts  and  Jibes  of  those  I  work  with, 
so  I  am  always  poor. 

Oh  what  a  devilish  life  is  mine  !  You  call  this  a  God's  world  ; 
if  it  is,  I  must  say  I  am  a  God-forgotten  mortal.  You  talk  of  big 
coming  Eternities  ;  you  call  man  a  Son  of  Earth  and  Heaven.  I 
often  ponder  over  such  phrases  as  these,  thinking  to  find  some 
meaning  in  them  that  would  bid  me  look  into  brighter  prospects 
in  the  dark  future.  I,  who  have  such  a  wretched  life  here,  often 
try  to  make  myself  believe  that  there  is  a  better  life  awaiting  me 
elsewhere. 

I  am  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  I  am  heartily  sick  of  life, 
and  I  live  here  only  because  I  have  not  the  courage  to  die.  I 
flatter  myself  that  I  shall  yet  get  courage.  I  have  become  misan- 
thropical. I  hate  all  things.  How  I  wish  that  this  solid  globe  was 
shattered  into  fragments,  and  I  left  alone  to  gaze  upon  the  ruins. 
Now  if  you  could  show  me  that  I  have  anything  to  live  for,  that 
there  is  anything  better  waiting  me  in  the  '  big  coming  eternities,' 
anything  that  would  make  me  bear  '  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time,' 
I  will  ever  remember  your  kindness  with  gratitude. 

I  know  no  such  hopes  can  be  aught  to  me.  It  would  have  been 
much  better  that  I  had  never  been  born.  It  is  hard  for  me  to 
confess  all  this  to  you — hard  for  me  to  confess  it  to  myself.  I  will 
conclude,  fearing  that  I  have  trespassed  too  far  on  your  attention 
already. 

Among  the  infirmities  of  age,  a  tremulous  motion  began 
to  show  itself  in  his  right  hand,  which  made  writing 
difficult  and  threatened  to  make  if  impossible.  It  was  a 
twitching  of  the  muscles,  an  involuntaiy  lateral  jerk  of 
the  arm  when  he  tried  to  use  it.  And  no  misfortune 
more  serious  could  have  befallen  him,  for  '  it  came,'  he 
said,  *  as  a  sentence  not  to  do  any  more  work  while  thou 
livest' — a  very  hard  one,  for  he  had  felt  a  return  of  his 
energy.  In  brighter  hours  he  saw  many  things  which  he 
might  write,  were  the  mechanical  means  still  there.'     He 


Riifid  Hand  nisahluL  333 

could  expand  tlie  thoughts  which  lay  scattered  in  liis  Jour- 
nal, lie  could  occupy  himself  at  any  rate,  in  itself  so 
necessary  to  so  restless  a  spirit.  He  tried  '  dictation,'  but 
it  resulted  only  in  *  diluted  nioonsliine.'  Letters  he  could 
dictate,  but  nothing  else,  and  the  case  was  cruel. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  May  26,  18T0. 
Gloomy,  moumfnl,  musing,  silent,  looking  back  on  the  unalter- 
able, and  forward  on  the  inevitable  and  inexorable.  That,  I 
know,  is  not  a  good  employment,  but  it  is  too  generally  mine, 
especially  since  I  lost  the  power  of  penmanship, '  and  have  prop- 
erly no  means  of  working  at  my  own  trade,  the  only  one  I  ever 
learned  to  work  at.  A  great  loss  this  of  my  right  hand.  Dicta- 
tion I  try  sometimes,  but  never  with  any  success,  and  doubt  now 
I  shall  never  leam  it.  Corn-age  nevertheless  ;  at  least,  silence  in 
regard  to  that  I 

Another  sorrow,  aggravating  the  rest,  was  the  death, 
March  20,  1870,  of  his  dear  friend  Mr.  Erskine  of  Lin- 
lathen.  Erskine,  *  one  of  the  most  religious  men '  left  in 
Scotland,  had  been  among  the  first  of  his  countrymen  to 
recognise  Carlyle,  and  to  see  in  him,  across  his  hetero- 
doxies, the  intense  *  belief '  which  is  the  essence  of  gen- 
uine piety.  Erskine's  orthodoxy,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
been  no  impediment  to  Carlyle's  affection  for  him. 

On  Sunday  (he  writes),  Thomas  Erskine,  nearly  my  last  Scotch 
friend,  except  my  own  kindred,  died,  weary  and  heavy-laden,  but 
patient,  true,  and  reverently  peaceable  to  the  veiy  last.  Another 
of  my  few  last  links  severed,  about  which  and  whom  the  flutter  to 
me  has  not  yet  ceased  wiOiout  or  within.  Night  before  last,  just  as 
I  was  falling  asleep,  vision  of  him  in  Princess  Street,  as  if  face  to 
face  ;  clear  discernment  of  what  a  pure  and  beautiful  and  brother- 
ly soul  he  had  been,  and  that  he  too  was  away  for  ever,  which  at 
once  awoke  me  again,  usefully  for  some  minutes.  .  .  .  Four 
y(^ai*s  all  but  thirteen  days  I  have  stood  contemplating  my  (own) 
calamity.  Time  was  to  bring  relief,  said  everybody ;  but  Time 
has  not  to  any  extent,  nor  in  truth  did  I  much  wish  him.    No. 

'  H«  wrote  now,  and  as  long  a*  he  could  write  at  all,  with  a  penoii 


334  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

At  all  hours  and  at  all  moments  her  transfigured  spirit  accom- 
panies me,  beautiful  and  sad  ;  lies  behind  all  thoughts  that  I  have 
and  even  all  talk  that  I  carry  on,  little,  as  my  collocutors  suspect. 
Sometimes  I  reflect,  Is  not  this  morbid,  weak,  improj)er?  but 
cannot  bring  myself  to  regret  it  at  any  time,  much  less  to  try  alter- 
ing it,  even  if  I  could.  The  truth  is,  I  am  unable  to  work.  "Work 
is  done.  Self  am  done.  My  life  now  has  nothing  in  it  but  the 
shadow,  sad,  grand,  unfathomable,  of  what  is  coming — coming. 

Time  and  sorrow  had  softened  the  angry  tones  of  Car- 
Ijle's  earlier  days.  The  Geyser  spring  rarely  shot  up  the 
hot  stones  and  steam,  and  his  talk  generally  was  as  cahn 
as  the  entries  in  his  Journal.  He  would  still  boil  up 
under  provocation,  but  he  was  sorry  for  it  afterwards. 
'Walk  with  Spedding  last  week,'  he  notes  on  the  1st  of 
May.  '  My  style  of  talk  to  him  so  fierce,  exaggerative, 
scornful  of  sui-rounding  men  and  things,  as  is  painful  to 
me  to  think  of  now.'  Far  more  often  he  was  trying  to 
see  the  silver  lining  of  the  cloud,  and  discover,  even  in 
what  he  most  detested,  the  action  of  something  good. 
Thus— 

Journal. 

April  16,  1870. — American  Anarchy.  Yes;  it  is  huge,  loud, 
ugly  to  soul  and  sense,  raging  wildly  in  that  manner  from  shore  to 
shore.  But  I  ask  myself  sometimes,  *  Could  your  Frederic  Wil- 
lielm,  your  wisest  Frederic,  by  the  strictest  government,  by  any 
conceivable  skill  in  the  art  of  charioteering,  guide  America  forward 
in  what  is  its  real  task  at  present — task  of  turning  a  savage  im- 
mensity into  arability,  utility,  and  readiness  for  becoming  human ^ 
as  fast  and  well  as  America  itself,  with  its  very  anarchies,  gascon- 
adings,  vulgarities,  stupidities,  is  now  doing?  No;  not  by  any 
means.  That  withal  is  perfectly  clear  to  me  this  good  while  past. 
Anarchies,  too,  have  their  uses,  and  are  appointed  with  cause. 
Our  own  anarchy  here,  ugliest  of  created  things  to  me,  do  I  not 
discern,  as  its  centre  and  vital  heart  even  now,  the  visibly  increas- 
ing hatred  of  mendacities,  the  gradually  and  now  rapidly  spreading 
conviction  that  there  can  be  no  good  got  of  formulas  and  shams ; 
that  these  are  good  only  to  abolish,  the  sooner  the  better,  toss  into 
the  fire  and  have  done  with  him.  Ti-ue — most  true  !  This  also  I  see. 


Uses  of  A  narchy.  835 

From  this  point  of  view  even  tlie  speculative  anarcliy  was 

not  witiiout  its  uses. 

Journal. 
June  23,  1870.— Book  (posthumous)  by  a  Professor  Grote,  sent 
to  me.  Anxious  remonstrance  against  J.  S.  Mill  and  the  Utilita- 
rian Theory  of  Morals.  Have  looked  through  it  seriously  intent, 
this  Grote  meaning  esadently  well,  but  can't  read  it,  nor  get  any 
good  of  it,  except  see  again  and  ever  again  what  the  infinite  l>e- 
wilderment  of  men's  minds  on  that  subject  is  ;  lost  in  vortexes  of 
Logic,  bottomless  and  boundless,  for  ever  incapable  of  settling  or 
even  elucidating  such  a  question.  He  that  still  doubts  whether 
his  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  a  revelation  from  the  Most  High, 
I  would  recommend  him  to  keep  silence,  rather  to  do  silently,  with 
more  and  more  of  pious  earnestness,  what  said  sense  dictates  to 
him  as  right.  Day  by  day  in  this  manner  will  he  do  better,  and 
also  see  more  clearly  where  the  sanction  of  his  doing  is,  and 
whence  derived.  By  pious  heroic  climbing  of  your  own,  not  by 
arguing  with  your  poor  neighbours,  wandering  to  right  and  left, 
do  you  at  length  reach  the  sanctuaiy — the  victorious  summit — and 
see  with  your  own  eyes.  The  prize  of  heroic  labour,  suffering, 
and  performance  this,  and  not  a  feat  of  dialectics  or  of  tongue  ar- 
gument with  yourself  or  with  another,  I  more  and  more  perceive 
it  to  be.  To  cease  that  miserable  problem  of  the  accounting  for 
the  *  moral  sense '  is  becoming  highly  desirable  in  our  epoch.  Can 
you  account  for  the  *  sense  of  hunger,'  for  example  ?  Don't ;  it  is 
too  idle ;  if  you  even  could ;  which  you  never  can  or  will,  except 
by  merely  telling  me  in  new  words  that  it  is  hunger ;  and  if,  in 
accounting  for  *  hunger,'  you  more  and  more  gave  up  eating,  what 
would  become  of  your  philosophy  and  you  ?  Cease,  cease,  my 
poor  empty-minded,  loud-headed,  much-bewildered  friends.  '  Re- 
ligion,' this,  too,  God  be  thanked,  I  perceive  to  be  again  possible, 
to  be  again  here,  for  whoever  will  piously  struggle  upwards,  and 
sacredly,  sorrowfully  refuse  to  speak  lies,  which  indeed  will  mostly 
mean  refuse  to  speak  at  all  on  that  topic.  No  words  for  it  in  our 
l)ftse  time.  In  no  time  or  epoch  can  the  Highest  be  spoken  of  in 
words — not  in  many  words,  I  think,  ever.  But  it  can  even  now  be 
silently  beheld,  and  even  adored  by  whoever  has  eyes  and  adora- 
tion, i.e.  reverence  in  him.  Nor,  if  he  must  be  for  the  present 
lonely  and '     ...     in  such  act,  will  that  always  be  the  case  ? 

>  This  passage,  written  in  pencil,  has  been  so  corrected  and  altered  as  to  bt 
in  parts  illegiblsi 


336  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

No,  probably  no,  I  begin  to  perceive  ;  not  always,  nor  altogether. 
But  in  the  meanwhile  Silence.  Why  am  I  writing  this  even  here  ? 
The  beginning  of  all  is  to  have  done  with  Falsity  ;  to  eschew  Fal- 
sity as  Death  Eternal. 

-  December  28. — I  wish  I  had  strength  to  elucidate  and  write  down 
intelligibly  to  my  fellow- creatures  what  my  outline  of  belief  about 
God  essentially  is.  It  might  be  useful  to  a  poor  protoplasm  gen- 
eration, all  seemingly  determined  on  those  poor  terms  to  try 
Atheism  for  a  while.  They  will  have  to  return  from  that,  I  can 
tell  them,  or  go  down  altogether  into  the  abyss.  I  find  lying  deep 
in  me  withal  some  confused  but  ineradicable  flicker  of  belief  that 
there  is  a  'particular  providence.'  Sincerely  I  do,  as  it  were, 
believe  this,  to  my  own  surprise,  and  could  perhaps  reconcile  ii 
with  a  higher  logic  than  the  common  draught-hoard  kind.  There 
may  further  be  a  chess-board  logic,  says  Novalis.  That  is  his  dis- 
tinction. 


CHAPTER  XXXn. 
A.D.  1870.    ^T.  75. 

Anne  Boleyn — '  Ginx's  Baby ' — The  Franco-Gterman  war — Eng- 
lish sympathy  with  France — Letter  to  the  '  Times ' — Effect 
of  it — Inability  to  write — '  Letters  and  Memorials  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle ' — Disposition  made  of  them. 

I  BEGIN  this  chapter  with  an  opinion  of  Carlyle  on  an  in- 
tricate liintorical  problem.  In  studying  the  history  of 
Henry  VIII..  I  had  been  uncertain  what  to  think  about 
tlie  trial  and  execution  of  Anne  Boleyn.  The  story  of 
her  offences  was  on  the  face  of  it  monstrous,  and  the 
King's  marriage,  following  instantly  on  her  execution,  was 
at  least  strange  and  suspicious.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
hard  to  believe  that  Commissions  of  Enquiry,  Judges,  ju- 
ries, the  Privy  Council,  and  finally,  Parliament,  which  was 
specially  summoned  on  the  occasion,  could  have  been  the 
accomplices  of  a  wanton  crime ;  and  the  King  in  ordinary 
prudence  would  have  avoided  insulting  the  common  sense 
and  conscience  of  the  realm,  if  he  knew  that  she  had  been 
falsely  accused,  and  would  have  at  least  waited  a  decent  pe- 
riod before  taking  a  new  wife.  I  did  not  know  till  I  had 
finished  my  book,  that  the  despatches  of  Eustace  Chapuys, 
the  Imperial  Ambassador  resident  at  the  time  in  London, 
had  been  preserved  at  Vienna.  I  went  thither  to  examine 
them  in  the  spring  of  1870,  and  I  published  extracts  from 
them  afterwards  in  *  Eraser's  Magazine.'     Chapuys's  ao- 


338  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

count,  tliougli  it  leaves  the  question  of  Anne's  guilt  still 
uncertain,  yet  reveals  a  mass  of  intrigue,  political  and  per- 
sonal, in  Henry's  court,  which  made  it  seem  possible,  for 
the  first  time  to  me,  that  the  poor  Queen  might  have  been 
innocent,  yet  that  the  King  and  Parliament  might  have 
honestly  believed  her  guilty.  During  violent  revolutions, 
men  can  believe  anything  that  falls  in  with  their  prevailing 
passions.  I  talked  the  subject  over  with  Carlyle  after  my 
return.  In  •  the  summer  he  went  to  Scotland,  where  the 
magazine,  with  the  letters  in  it,  reached  him ;  and  he  wrote 
thus  to  me : — 

The  Hill,  Dumfries  :  August  14,  1870. 

As  to  Anne  Boleyn,  I  find  still  a  considerable  want  of  perfect 
clearness,  and,  without  that,  the  nearest  approach  I  made  to 
clearness  about  her  was  in  the  dialogne  we  had  one  day  before 
Chapuys  came  out.  Chapuys  rather  sent  nie  to  sea  again,  and 
dimmed  the  matter.  I  did  not  quite  gather  from  him  what  I 
did  from  you — the  frantic,  fanatical,  rabid,  and  preternatural 
state  of  '  public  opinion.'  This  I  had  found  to  be  quite  the  illu- 
minative lamp  of  the  transaction,  both  as  to  her  conduct  and  to 
every  one's  .  .  .  and  such  in  fact  it  still  continues,  on  the  faith 
of  what  you  said,  and  inclines  me  to  believe,  on  all  the  proba- 
bilities I  have,  that  those  adulterous  abominations,  even  the 
caitiff  lute-player's  part,^  are  most  likely  altogether  lies  upon 
the  poor  lady. 

This  was  Carlyle's  judgment,  formed  on  such  data  as  I 
could  give  him  on  this  difficult  matter.  I  added  what  more 
I  had  to  say  upon  it  in  an  appendix  to  the  next  edition  of 
my  work. 

Carlyle  enjoyed  Scotland  this  year.  He  described  his 
life  to  me  as  '  encircled  in  cotton,  such  the  unwearied  kind- 
ness and  loving  patience  of  his  sister's  household  with  him.' 
To  Miss  Bromley  he  wrote :  '  The  incomparable  fresh- 
ness, the  air  on  the  hillside,  and  the  luxurious  beauty  of 

^  Mark  Smetou,  who  confessed  to  the  adultery. 


'  Gina's  Baby:  889 

these  old  hills  and  dales  all  round,  so  silent,  yet  so  full  of 
foices,  strange  and  sacred,  mournfully  audible  to  one's 
poor  old  heart,  are  evidently  doing  me  day  by  day  some 
little  good ;  though  I  have  sad  fighting  with  the  quasi-in- 
fernal ingredient — the  railway  whistle,  namely — and  have 
my  difficulties  and  dodgings  to  obtain  enough  of  sleep.' 
Miss  Bromley  had  sent  him  a  book  which  pleased  him. 

To  Miss  Bromley. 

The  Hill :  July  11. 

' Ginx's  Baby'  is  capital  in  its  way,  and  has  given  great  satis- 
faction here.  The  writing  man  is  rather  of  penny-a-liner  habits 
and  kind,  but  he  slashes  along  swift  and  fearless,  sketching  at 
arm's  length,  as  with  a  burnt  stick  on  a  cottage  wall,  and 
sketches  and  paints  for  us  some  real  likeness  of  the  sickening 
juid  indeed  horrible  anarchy  and  godless  neghgence  and  stupor 
that  pervades  British  society,  especially  the  lowest,  largest,  and 
most  neglected  class  ;  no  legislator,  people's  William  or  official 
person,  ever  casting  an  eye  in  that  direction,  but  pi'eferring  to 
beat  the  wind  instead.  Grod  mend  it !  I  perceive  it  will  have  to 
try  mending  itself  in  altogether  terrible  and  unexpected  ways 
before  long,  if  everybody  takes  the  course  of  the  people's  Will- 
iam upon  it.  This  poor  penny-a-liner  is  evidently  sincei-e  in  his 
denunciation  and  delineation,  and,  one  hopes,  may  awaken  hei*e 
and  there  some  torpid  soul,  dilettante  M.P.  or  the  like,  to  serious 
I'eflection  on  what  is  the  one  thing  needful  at  this  day,  in 
Parliament  and  out  of  it,  if  he  were  wise  to  discern. 

Alas !  it  is  above  thirty  years  since  I  started  the  Condition  of 
England  question  as  well  worthy  of  considering,  but  was  met 
with  nothing  but  angry  howls  and  Eadical  Ha,  ha's  1  And  hei-e 
the  said  question  stiQ  is,  untouched  and  ten  times  more  unman- 
ageable than  then.  Well,  well  I  I  return  you  Ginx,  and  shut 
up  my  lamentations. 

To  me  he  wrote  something  in  the  same  strain,  a  prapos 
of  some  paper  of  mine  on  the  colonies : — 

People's  WUliam  and  all  the  parties  to  so  unspeakable  a  plan 
of  '  management '  and  state  of  things,  to  me  are  unendurable 


340  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

to  think  of,  .  Torpid,  gluttonous,  sooty,  swollen,  and  squalid 
England  is  grown  a  phenomenon  which  fills  me  with  disgust 
and  apprehension,  almost  desperate,  so  far  as  it  is  concerned. 
What  a  hase,  pot-bellied  blockhead  this  our  heroic  nation  has 
become  ;  sunk  in  its  own  dirty  fat  and  offal,  and  of  a  stupidity 
defying  the  very  gods.  Do  not  grow  desperate  of  it ,  you  who 
have  still  a  hoping  heart,  and  a  right  hand  that  does  not  shake. 

The  finer  forces  of  nature  were  not  sleeping  everywhere, 
and  Europe  witnessed  'this  summer,  in  the  French  and 
German  war,  an  exhibition  of  Divine  judgment  wliich  was 
after  Carlyle's  own  heart.  So  suddenly  too  it  came ;  the 
whole  sky  growing  black  witH  storm,  and  the  air  ablaze 
with  lightning,  '  in  an  hour  when  no  man  looked  for  it.' 
France  he  had  long  known  was  travelling  on  a  bad  road, 
as  bad  as  England's,  or  worse.  The  Hterature  there  was  '  a 
new  kind  of  Phallus-worship,  with  Sue,  Balzac,  and  Co. 
for  prophets,  and  Madame  Sand  for  a  virgin.'  The  Church 
getting  on  its  feet  again,  with  its  Pope's  infallibility,  &c., 
was  the  re-establishment  of  exploded  lies.  As  the  people 
were,  such  was  their  government.  The  '  Copper  Captain,' 
in  his  eyes,  was  the  abomination  of  desolation,  a  mean  and 
perjured  adventurer.  He  had  known  him  personally  in 
his  old  London  days,  and  had  measured  his  nature.  Prince 
Napoleon  had  once  spent  an  evening  in  Cheyne  Pow. 
Carlyle  had  spoken  his  mind  freely,  as  he  always  did,  and 
the  Prince  had  gone  away  inquiring  '  if  that  man  was  mad.' 
Carlyle's  madness  was  clearer-sighted  than  Imperial  cun- 
ning. He  regarded  the  Emperor's  presence  on  a  throne 
which  he  had  won  by  so  evil  means  as  a  moral  indignity, 
and  had  never  doubted  that  in  the  end  Providence  would 
in  some  way  set  its  mark  upon  him.  When  war  was  de- 
clared, he  felt  that  the  end  was  coming.  He  had  proph- 
esied, in  the  '  Life  of  Frederick,'  that  Prussia  would  be- 
come the  leading  State  of  Germany,  perhaps  of  Europe. 


The  Franco-Geiincm  War.  841 

Half  that  prophecy  had  been  fuliilled  already  through  the 
war  of  1866.  The  issue  of  the  war  with  France  was  never 
for  a  moment  doubtful  to  him,  though  neither  he  nor  any 
one  could  foresee  how  complete  the  Gennan  victory  would 
be.  He  was  still  in  Scotland  when  the  news  came  of 
Gravelotte  and  Sedan,  and  I  had  this  letter  from  him : — 

September  1870. — Of  outward  events  the  war  does  interest 
me,  as  it  does  the  whole  world.  No  war  so  wonderful  did 
I  ever  read  of,  and  the  results  of  it  I  reckon  to  be  salutary,  grand, 
and  hopeful,  beyond  any  which  have  occuiTed  in  my  time. 
Paris  city  must  be  a  wonderful  place  to-day.  I  believe  the 
Prussians  will  certainly  keep  for  Germany  what  of  Ellsass  and 
Lorrame  is  still  German,  or  can  be  expected  to  re-became  suc^ 
and  withal  that  the  whole  world  cannot  forbid  them  to  do  it, 
and  that  Heaven  will  not  (nor  I).  Alone  of  nations,  Prussia 
seems  still  to  understand  something  of  the  art  of  governing, 
and  of  fighting  enemies  to  said  art.  Grermany,  from  of  old,  has 
been  the  peaceablest,  most  pious,  and  in  the  end  most  valiant 
and  terriblest  of  nations.  Grermany  ought  to  be  President  of 
Europe,  and  will  again,  it  seems,  be  tried  with  that  office  for 
another  five  centuries  or  so. 

In  September  Carlyle  came  back  to  Chelsea,  still  eagerly 
watchmg  the  events  of  the  war. 

Journal. 

October  3. — State  of  France,  lying  helpless,  headless  even, 
but  still  braggart  in  its  ignominy  under  the  heel  of  Prussia,  is 
full  of  interest  even  to  me.  What  will  become  of  the  mad 
country  next  ?  Paris,  shut  up  on  every  side,  can  send  no  news 
except  by  balloon  and  carrier-pigeons.  The  country  is  without 
any  visible  government.  A  country  with  its  head  cut  off; 
Paris  undertaking  to  'stand  siege; '  the  voice  of  France  a  con- 
fused babblement  fi-om  the  gutters,  scarcely  human  at  all,  you 
would  say,  so  dark,  ignorant,  mad  do  they  .seem.  This  is  her 
first  lesson  poor  France  is  getting.  It  is  probable  she  will  re- 
<iuii-c  many  such.     For  the  last  twenty  yeai*s  I  have  been  pre 


342  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

dieting  to  myself  that  there  might  lie  ahead  for  a  nation  so  full 
of  mad  and  loud  oblivion  of  the  laws  of  this  universe,  a  destiny- 
no  better  than  that  of  Poland.  Its  strongest  bond,  I  often 
guess,  is  probably  the  fine  and  graceful  language  it  has  got  to 
speak,  and  to  have  so  many  neighbours  learn ;  one  great  advan- 
tage over  Poland,  but  not  an  all-availing  one.  Peace  with 
Prussia,  by  coming  in  Prussia's  '  will,'  as  the  Scotch  say,  is  the 
first  result  to  be  looked  for ;  after  which  Due  d' Aumale  or  d'Or- 
leans  for  a  while?  Eepublic  for  a  while?  None  knows,  except 
that  it  can  only  be  for  a  while ;  that '  anarchies '  are  not  permitted 
to  exist  in  this  universe,  and  that  nothing  not  anarchic  is  pos- 
sible in  such  a  France  as  now  is.  NHmporte  ;  nHmporfe.  Poor 
France !  Nay,  the  state  of  England  is  almost  still  more  hideous 
to  me ;  base  exceedingly,  to  all  but  the  flunkey  and  the  penny 
editors,  and  given  up  to  a  stupidity  which  theologians  might  call 
judicial ! 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Russia  took  advantage  of 
the  state  of  Europe  and  tore  the  article  in  the  Treaty  of 
Paris  which  limited  her  Black  Sea  fleet.  When  the  article 
was  drawn,  the  essentially  temporary  character  of  it  was 
well  understood ;  but  England  bristled  up  when  the  tro- 
phies of  her  Crimean  glories  were  shattered  and  flung  in 
her  face  so  cavalierly ;  for  a  week  or  two  there  was  talk  of 
war  ag-ain  between  us  and  Russia. 

Quarrel  (Carlyle  said)  mad  as  a  March  hare,  if  it  don't  con- 
fine itself  to  the  able  editors,  which  who  can  be  sure  of?  Never 
thou  mind.  England  seems  to  be  all  pretty  mad.  Perhaps  God 
will  be  merciful  to  her ;  perhaps  not,  too ;  for  her  impious  stu- 
pidities are  and  have  been  many.  .  .  . 

Ten  days  ago  read  Gladstone's  article  in  the  '  Edinburgh  Re- 
view '  with  amazement.  Empty  as  a  blown  goose-egg.  Seldon^ 
have  I  read  such  a  ridiculous  solemn  addle-pated  Joseph  Sur- 
face of  a  thing.  Nothingness  or  near  it  conscious  to  itseK  of 
being  greatness  almost  unexampled.  Thanks  to  '  parliamentary 
eloquence'  mainly,  and  its  value  to  oneself  and  others.  Ac- 
cording to  the  People's  William,  England,  with  himself  atop, 
is  evidently  even  now  at  the  top  of  the  world.    Against  bot- 


Ehase  and  Lorrmne.  343 

tomlesB  anarchy  in  all  fibres  of  her,  spiritual  and  practical,  she 
has  now  a  completed  ballot-box,  can  vote  and  count  noses,  free 
as  air.  Nothing  else  wanted,  clearly  thinks  the  People's  Will- 
iam. He  would  ask  you,  with  imfeigned  astonishment,  '  What 
else?'  'The  sovereign'st  thing  in  nature  is  parmaceW  {read 
ballot)  'for  an  inward  bruise.'  That  is  evidently  his  belief, 
what  he  finds  believable  about  this  universe,  in  England  a.D. 
1870.     Parmaceti  I    Parmaceti !    Enough  of  him  and  of  it. 

France  had  so  clearly  been  the  aggressor  in  the  war  with 
Germany  that  the  feeling  in  England  at  the  outset  had 
been  on  the  German  side.  The  general  belief,  too,  had 
been  that  France  would  win.  Sympathy,  however,  grew 
with  her  defeats.  The  English  are  always  restive  when 
other  nations  are  fighting,  and  fancy  that  they  ought  to 
have  a  voice  in  the  settlement  of  every  quarrel.  There  is 
a  generous  disposition  in  us,  too,  to  take  the  weaker  side ; 
to  assume  that  the  stronger  party  is  in  the  wrong,  especially 
if  he  takes  advantage  of  his  superiority.  When  Germany 
began  to  formulate  her  terms  of  peace,  when  it  became 
clear  that  she  meant,  as  Carlyle  foretold,  to  take  back  El- 
sass  and  Lorraine,  there  was  a  cry  of  spoliation,  sanctioned 
unfortunately  in  high  Liberal  quarters  where  the  truth 
ought  to  have  been  better  known.  A  sore  feehng  began 
to  show  itself,  aggravated  perhaps  by  the  Russian  business, 
which,  if  it  did  not  threaten  to  take  active  form,  encour- 
aged France  to  prolong  its  refeistance.  The  past  history  of 
the  relations  between  France  and  Germany  was  little  un- 
derstood in  England.  Carlyle  perhaps  alone  among  us 
knew  completely  how  France  had  come  by  those  essentially 
German  provinces,  or  how  the  bill  was  now  being  presented 
f  jr  payment  which  had  been  running  for  centuries.  To 
allay  the  outcry  which  was  rising  he  reluctantly  buckled 
on  his  armour  again.  With  his  niece's  help  he  dictated  a 
long  letter  to  the  'Times,'  telling  his  story  simply  and 


344  CarlyWs  Life  in  London. 

clearly,  without  a  trace  of  mannerism  or  exaggeration.  It 
appeared  in  the  middle  of  November,  and  at  once  cooled 
the  water  which  might  otherwise  have  boiled  over.  We 
think  little  of  dangers  escaped ;  but  wise  men  everywhere 
felt  that  in  writing  it  he  had  rendered  a  service  of  the 
highest  kind  to  European  order  and  justice.  His  own  allu- 
sions to  what  he  had  done  are  sHght  and  brief.  As  usual 
he  thought  but  little  of  his  own  performance. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

November  12,  1870. 

Poor  Mary  and  I  have  had  a  terrible  ten  days,  properly  a 
'  Much  Ado  about  Nothing.'  It  concerned  only  that  projected 
letter  to  the  newspapers  about  Germany.  With  a  right  hand 
valid  and  nerves  in  order  I  might  have  done  the  letter  in  a  day, 
but  with  nerves  all  the  contrary,  and  no  right  hand,  it  was  all 
different.  Poor  Mary  had  endless  patience,  endless  assiduity ; 
wrote  like  a  little  fairy ;  sharp  as  a  needle,  and  all  that  could  be 
expected  of  her  when  it  came  to  writing :  and  before  that  there 
was  such  a  hauling  down  of  old  forgotten  books,  &c.,  in  all 
which  my  little  helpmate  was  nimble  and  unwearied.  In  fine, 
we  have  got  the  letter  done  and  fairly  sent  away  last  night.  I 
do  not  reckon  it  a  good  letter,  but  it  expresses  in  a  probably  too 
emphatic  way  what  my  convictions  are,  and  is  a  clearance  to 
my  conscience  in  that  matter  whether  it  do  good  or  not,  whether 
it  be  good  or  not. 

Journal. 

November  21. — ^Wrote,  with  much  puddle  and  confused 
bother,  owing  to  mutinous  right  hand  mainly,  a  letter  to  the 
'  Times '  on  the  French-German  question,  dated  ten  days  ago, 
published  in  '  Times '  of  November  18.  Infinite  jargon  in  news- 
papers seemingly,  and  many  scrubby  notes  knocking  at  this 
door  in  consequence.  Must  last  still  for  a  few  days — in  a  few 
days  will  pass  away  like  a  dust-cloud. 

Not  scrubby  notes  only,  but  'a  rain  of  letters,  wise, 
foolish,  sane,  mad,'  streamed  in  upon  Cheyne  Kow  during 
the  next  few  weeks.    Some  were  really  interesting,  coming 


Count  Bernai/jrff,  344) 

from  German  soldiers  sen'ing  in  tlie  trenches  before  Paris, 
grateful  to  the  single  Englishman  who  could  feel  for  them 
and'  stand  up  for  them.  On  the  25th  a  telegram  was  for- 
warded to  him  by  the  Prussian  Ambassador,  with  a  note 
from  himself.  The  terms  of  the  message  I  do  not  know, 
nor  by  whom  it  was  sent.  The  nature  of  it,  however,  may 
be  inferred  from  the  words  of  Count  Bemstorff. 

Prussia  House,  Carlton  House  Terra<», 
November  25,  1870. 

Sir, — ^I  received  yesterday  evening  the  enclosed  telegram  for 
you  from  Hamburg,  and  I  am  mucli  gratified  to  be  able  to  avail 
myself  of  the  opportunity  of  forwarding  it  to  you,  and  of  ex- 
pressing to  the  celebrated  historian  my  entire  concurrence  in 
the  thankfulness  of  my  countrymen. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  Servant, 

Bernstorff. 

In  fact  Carlyle's  letter  had  most  effectually  answered  its 
purpose.  There  was  no  more  talk  of  English  interposition. 
M.  Thiers  came  over  to  beg  for  help ;  if  not  material,  at 
least  moral.  We  had  to  decline  to  interfere,  and  France 
was  left  to  its  fate — a  fate  terrible  beyond  Carlyle's  expec- 
tation, for  Paris,  after  being  taken  by  the  Germans,  had  to 
be  recovered  again  out  of  the  hands  of  the  French  Com- 
mune amidst  the  ashes  of  the  Tuileries,  and  a  second  *  Sep- 
tember' massacre,  to  be  avenged  by  a  massacre  in  turn. 
On  these  horrors  there  is  a  pregnant  passage  in  a  letter  of 
his  to  his  bro'ther.  He  saw,  when  no  one  else  saw  it,  the 
coming  greatness  of  Prussia.  Perhaps  he  saw  other  things 
equally  correctly  which  no  one  else  can  see. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

May  29,  1871. 

I  am  much  in  the  dark  about  the  real  meaning  of  all  these 
quasi-infernal  Bedlamisms,  upon  which  no  newspaper  that  I 


346  CarlyWs  Life  in  London, 

look  into  has  anything  to  say  except  'horrible,'  'shameful,'  and 
'  O  Lord,  I  thank  thee  that  we  Englishmen  are  not  as  other 
men.'  One  thing  I  can  see  in  these  murderous  ragings  by  the 
poorest  classes  in  Paris,  that  they  are  a  tremendous  proclama- 
tion to  the  upper  classes  in  all  countries  :  '  Our  condition,  af- 
ter eighty-two  years  of  struggling,  O  ye  quack  upper  classes, 
is  still  unimproved  ;  more  intolerable  from  year  to  year,  and 
from  revolution  to  revolution;  and  by  the  Eternal  Powers,  if 
you  cannot  mend  it,  we  will  blow  up  the  world,  along  with 
ourselves  and  you.' 

It  was  Carlyle's  deliberate  conviction  that  a  fate  like  that 
of  Paris,  and  far  worse  than  had  yet  befallen  Paris,  lay 
directly  ahead  of  all  great  modern  cities,  if  their  affairs 
were  allowed  to  drift  on  under  laissez-faire  and'  so-called 
Liberty. 

But  the  world  and  its  concerns,  even  Franco-German 
wars  and  Paris  revolutions,  could  not  abstract  his  mind,  ex- 
cept fitfully,  from  the  central  thoughts  which  occupied  liis 
heart.  His  interest  had  essentially  gone  from  the  Present 
to  the  Past  and  Future,  the  Past  so  painfully  beautiful,  the 
Future  with  the  veil  over  it  which  no  hand  had  lifted  or 
could  lift.  Could  he  but  hope  to  see  her  once  more,  if 
only  for  five  minutes  ?  By  the  side  of  this  the  rest  was 
nothing. 

In  the  midst  of  the  echoes  from  the  battlefields  he 
writes : — 

Journal.  ' 

October  11,  1870. — ^Very  sad,  sunless,  is  the  hue  of  this  now 
almost  empty  world  to  me.  World  about  to  vanish  for  me 
in  Eternities  that  cannot  be  known.  Infinite  longing  for  my 
loved  ones — towards  Her  almost  a  kind  of  mournful  worship 
— this  is  the  one  celestial  element  of  my  new  existence ;  otherwise 
in  general  '  wae  and  weary ' — '  wae  and  weary.'  Not  even  the 
amazing  German-French  war,  grandest  and  most  beneficent  of 
Heavenly  providences  m  the  history  of  my  time,  can  kindle  me, 
except  for  a  short  while. 


The  Bight  Hand  *M7 

Again,  soon  after  Count  Bernstorfifs  note : — 

Journal. 

December  15,  1870. — How  pungent  is  remorse,  when  it  turns 
upon  the  loved  dead,  who  cannot  pardon  us,  cannot  hear  us  now  1 
Two  plain  precepts  there  are.  Dost  thou  intend  a  kindness  to 
thy  beloved  one  ?  Do  it  straightway,  while  the  fateful  Future 
is  not  yet  here.  Has  thy  heart's  friend  carelessly  or  cruelly 
stabbed  into  thy  heart.  Oh,  forgive  him !  Think  how,  when 
thou  art  dead,  he  will  punish  himself.  True  precepts — clear 
dictates  of  prudence  both,  yet  how  often  neglected ! 

In  the  following  spring  there  are  the  saddest  notices  of  the 
failure  of  his  hand,  as  if  he  was  still  eager  to  write  some- 
thing, but  could  not : — 

Loss  of  my  right  hand  for  writing  with — a  terrible  loss. 
Never  shall  I  learn  to  write  by  dictation,  I  perceive.  Alas  1  alas ! 
for  I  might  still  work  a  little  if  I  had  my  hand,  and  the  night 
Cometh  wherein  no  man  can  work. 

And  a  fortnight  later : — 

June  15,  1871. — Curious  to  consider  the  institution  of  the 
Right  hand  among  luiiversal  mankind ;  probably  the  very  old- 
est human  institution  that  exists,  indispensable  to  all  human 
co-operation  whatsoever.  He  that  has  seen  three  mowers,  one 
of  whom  is  left-handed,  trying  to  work  together,  and  how  im- 
possible it  is,  has  witnessed  the  simplest  form  of  an  impossibility, 
which  but  for  the  distinction  of  *  right  hand '  would  have  per- 
vaded all  human  things.  Have  often  thought  of  all  that — 
never  saw  it  so  clearly  as  this  morning  while  out  walking,  im- 
slept  and  dreary  enough  in  the  windy  sunshine.  How  old  ? 
Old !  I  wonder  if  there  is  any  people  barbarous  enough  not  to 
have  this  distinction  of  hands ;  no  human  Cosmos  possible  to  be 
even  begun  without  it.  Oldest  Hebrews,  &c.,  writing  from 
right  to  left,  are  as  familiar  with  the  world-old  institution  as 
we. 

Why  tliat  particular  hand  was  chosen  is  a  question  not  to  be 


348  Carlyle's  Life  vn  London. 

settled,  not  worth  asking  except  as  a  kind  of  riddle  :  probably 
arose  in  fighting- ;  most  important  to  protect  your  heart  and  its 
adjacencies,  and  to  carry  the  shield  in  that  hand. 

This  is  very  characteristic  of  Carljle,  who  went  always 
to  the  heart  of  every  subject  which  occupied  him.  But  his 
particular  occupation  with  it  at  that  moment,  and  his  im- 
patience with  his  inability  to  write,  perhaps  arose  from  an 
eagerness  to  leave  complete,  with  a  fitting  introduction, 
the  letters  and  memorials  of  his  wife,  before  making  a  final 
disposition  of  the  manuscript.  He  could  not  do  it.  He 
was  conscious  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  do  it,  and 
that  he  must  decide  on  some  other  course.  I  was  still  his  con- 
stant companion,  but  up  to  this  time  he  had  never  mentioned 
these  memoirs  to  me.  Of  her  he  spoke  continually,  always 
in  the  same  remorseful  tone,  always  with  bitter  self-re- 
proach ;  but  of  the  monument  which  he  had  raised  to  her 
memory  he  had  never  spoken  at  all.  One  day — the  middle 
or  end  of  June,  1871 — ^he  brought,  himself,  to  my  house  a 
large  parcel  of  papers.  He  put  it  in  my  hands.  He  told 
me  to  take  it  simply  and  absolutely  as  my  own,  without 
reference  to  any  other  person  or  persons,  and  to  do  with  it 
as  I  pleased  after  he  was  gone.  He  explained,  when  he  saw 
me  surprised,  that  it  was  an  account  of  his  wife's  history, 
that  it  was  incomplete,  that  he  could  himself  form  no  opin- 
ion whether  it  ought  to  be  published  or  not,  that  he  could 
do  no  more  to  it,  and  must  pass  it  over  to  me.  He  wished 
never  to  hear  of  it  again.  I  must  judge.  I  must  publish 
it,  the  whole  or  part — or  else  destroy  it  all,  if  I  thought 
that  this  would  be  the  wiser  thing  to  do.  He  said  nothing 
of  any  limit  of  time.  I  was  to  wait  only  till  he  was  dead, 
and  he  was  then  in  constant  expectation  of  his  end.  Of 
himself  he  desired  that  no  biography  should  be  written, 
and  that  this  Memoir,  if  any,  should  be  the  authorised 


^Letters  a/nd  Memorwh,^  349 

record  of  him.  So  extraordinary  a  mark  of  confidence 
touched  me  deeply,  but  the  responsibility  was  not  to  be 
hastily  accepted.  I  was  then  going  into  the  country  for 
the  simimer.  I  said  that  I  would  take  the  MS.  with  me, 
and  would  either  write  to  him  or  would  give  him  an 
answer  when  we  met  in  the  autumn. 

On  examining  the  present  which  had  been  thus  singu- 
larly made  to  me  I  found  that  it  consisted  of  a  transcript 
of  the  *  Reminiscence '  of  Mrs.  Carlyle,  which  he  had  writ- 
ten immediately  after  her  death,  with  a  copy  of  the  old 
direction  of  1866,  that  it  was  not  to  be  published ;  two 
other  fragmentary  accounts  of  her  family  and  herself ;  and 
an  attempt  at  a  preface,  which  had  been  abandoned.  The 
rest  was  the  collection  of  her  own  letters,  &c. — almost  twice 
as  voluminous  as  that  which  has  been  since  printed — with 
notes,  commentaries,  and  introductory  explanations  of  his 
own.  The  perusal  was  infinitely  affecting.  I  saw  at  once 
the  meaning  of  his  passionate  expressions  of  remorse,  of  his 
allusions  to  Johnson's  penance,  and  of  his  repeated  declara- 
tion that  something  like  it  was  due  from  himself.  He  had 
never  properly  understood  till  her  death  how  much  she  had 
suffered,  and  how  much  he  had  himself  to  answer  for.  She, 
it  appeared,  in  her  young  days  had  aspired  after  literary 
distinction.  He  had  here  built  together,  at  once  a  me- 
morial of  the  genius  which  had  been  sacrificed  to  himself, 
and  of  those  faults  in  himself  which,  though  they  were 
faults  merely  of  an  irritable  temperament,  and  though  he 
extravagantly  exaggerated  them,  had  saddened  her  married 
life.  Something  of  this  I  had  observed,  but  I  had  not 
known  the  extent  of  it ;  and  this  action  of  Carlyle's  struck 
me  as  something  so  beautiful,  so  unexampled  in  the  whole 
history  of  literature,  that  I  could  but  admire  it  with  all  my 
heart.  Faults  there  had  been ;  yes,  faults  no  doubt,  but 
Buch  faults  as  most  married  men  commit  daily  and  hourly, 


350  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London, 

and  never  think  tliem  faults  at  all :  yet  to  him  his  conduct 
seemed  so  heinous  that  he  could  intend  deHberately  that 
this  record  should  be  the  only  history  that  was  to  survive 
of  himself.  In  his  most  heroic  life  there  was  nothing  more 
heroic,  more  characteristic  of  him,  more  indicative  at  once 
of  his  humility  and  his  intense  truthfulness.  He  regarded 
it  evidently  as  an  expiation  of  his  own  conduct,  all  that  he 
had  now  to  offer,  and  something  which  removed  the  shadow 
between  himself  and  her  memory.  The  question  before  me 
was  whether  I  was  to  say  that  the  atonement  ought  not  to 
be  completed,  and  that  the  bravest  action  which  I  had  ever 
heard  of  should  be  left  unexecuted,  or  whether  I  was  to 
bear  the  reproach,  if  the  letters  were  given  to  the  world,  of 
having  uncovered  the  errors  of  the  best  friend  that  I  had 
ever  had.  Carlyle  himself  could  not  direct  the  pubHcation, 
from  a  feeling,  I  suppose,  of  deHcacy,  and  dread  of  ostenta- 
tion. I  could  not  tell  him  that  there  was  nothing  in  his 
conduct  to  be  repented  of,  for  there  was  much,  and  more 
than  I  had  guessed ;  and  I  had  again  to  reflect  that,  if  I 
burnt  the  MS.,  Mrs.  Carlyle  had  been  a  voluminous  letter- 
writer,  and  had  never  been  reticent  about  her  grievances. 
Other  letters  of  hers  would  infallibly  in  time  come  to  light, 
telling  the  same  story.  I  should  then  have  done  Carlyle's 
memory  irreparable  wrong.  He  had  himself  been  ready 
with  a  frank  and  noble  confession,  and  the  world,  after  its 
first  astonishment,  would  have  felt  increased  admiration  for 
the  man  who  had  the  courage  to  make  it.  I  should  have 
stepped  between  him  and  the  completion  of  a  purpose  which 
would  have  washed  his  reputation  clear  of  the  only  reproach 
which  could  be  brought  against  it.  Had  Carlyle  been  an 
ordinary  man,  his  private  life  would  have  concerned  no  one 
but  himself,  and  no  one  would  have  cared  to  inquire  into 
it.  But  he  belonged  to  the  exceptional  few  of  whom  it  was 
certain  that  everything  that  could  be  known  would  eveiitu- 


^Letters  and  Memorials.^  361 

ally  be  sifted  out.  Sooner  or  later  the  whole  truth  would 
be  revealed.  Should  it  be  told  voluntarily  by  himself,  or 
maliciously  by  others  hereafter  ?     That  was  the  question. 

When  I  saw  him  again  after  the  summer  we  talked  the 
subject  over  with  the  fullest  confidence.  He  was  nerv- 
ously anxious  to  know  my  resolution.  I  told  him  that,  so 
far  as  I  could  then  form  an  opinion,  I  thought  that  the 
letters  might  be  published,  provided  the  prohibition  was 
withdrawn  against  publishing  his  own  Memoir  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle.  That  would  show  what  his  feeling  had  really 
been,  and  what  she  had  really  been,  which  also  might  per- 
haps be  misconstrued.  It  would  have  been  hard  on  both 
of  them  if  the  sharp  censures  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  pen  had 
been  left  unrelieved.  To  this  Carlyle  instantly  assented. 
The  copy  of  the  Memoir  had  indeed  been  given  to  me 
among  the  other  papers,  that  I  might  make  use  of  it  if  I 
liked,  and  he  had  perhaps  forgotten  that  any  prohibition 
had  been  attached,  but  I  required,  and  I  received,  a  direct 
permission  to  print  it.  The  next  question  was  about  the 
time  of  publication.  On  the  last  page  of  the  MS.  was  at- 
tached a  pencil  note  naming,  first,  twenty  years  after  his 
death.  The  "^ after  my  death'  had  been  erased,  but  the 
twenty  years  remained.  Though  I  was  considerably 
younger  than  he  was,  I  could  not  calculate  on  living  twenty 
years,  and  the  letters,  if  published  at  all,  were  to  be  pub- 
lished by  me.  When  he  had  given  them  to  me  in  June  he 
had  told  me  only  that  I  was  to  wait  till  he  was  gone.  He 
i5aid  now  tliat  ten  years  would  be  enough — ten  years  from 
that  time.  There  were  many  allusions  in  the  letters  to 
people  and  things,  anecdotes,  criticisms,  observations, 
written  in  the  confidence  of  private  correspondence, 
which  ought  not  to  be  printed  within  s5  short  a  time.  I 
mentioned  some  of  these,  which  he  directed  me  to  omit. 
On  these  conditions  I  accepted  the  charge,  but  still  only 


353  Carlyle^s  Life  in  Lmidon. 

hypotheticallj.  It  had  been  entrusted  to  me  alone,  and  I 
wished  for  further  advice.  He  said  that  if  I  was  in  a  diffi- 
culty I  might  consult  John  Forster,  and  he  added  after- 
wards his  brother  John.  John  Carlyle  I  had  never  an  op- 
portunity of  consulting.  I  presumed  that  John  Carlyle 
was  acquainted  with  his  brother's  intentions,  and  would 
communicate  with  me  on  the  subject  if  he  wished  to  do 
so ;  but  I  sent  the  manuscript  to  Forster,  that  I  might 
learn  generally  his  opinion  about  it.  Forster  had  been  one 
of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  dearest  friends,  much  more  intimate  with 
her  than  I  had  been.  He,  if  any  one,  could  say  whether 
so  open  a  revelation  of  the  life  at  Cheyne  Row  was  one 
which  ought  to  be  made.  Forster  read  the  letters.  I  sup- 
pose that  he  felt  as  uncertain  as  I  had  done,  the  reasons 
against  the  jjubhcation  being  so  obvious  and  so  weighty. 
But  he  admired  equally  the  integrity  which  had  led  Car- 
lyle to  lay  bare  his  inner  history.  He  felt  as  I  did,  that 
Carlyle  was  an  exceptional  person,  whose  character  the  world 
had  a  right  to  know,  and  he  found  it  difficult  to  come  to 
a  conclusion.  To  me  at  any  rate  he  gave  no  opinion  at  all. 
He  merely  said  that  he  would  talk  to  Carlyle  himself,  and 
would  tell  him  that  he  must  make  my  position  perfectly 
clear  in  his  will,  or  trouble  would  certainly  arise  about  it. 
[N'othing  more  passed  between  Forster  and  myself  upon 
the  subject.  Carlyle,  however,  in  the  will  which  he  made 
two  years  later  bequeathed  the  MS.  to  me  specifically  in 
terms  of  the  tenderest  confidence.  He  desired  that  I 
should  consult  Forster  and  his  brother  when  the  occasion 
came  for  a  final  resolution ;  but  especially  he  gave  the  trust 
to  me,  charging  me  to  do  my  best  and  wisest  with  it.  He 
mentioned  seven  years  or  ten  from  that  date  (1873)  as  a 
term  at  which  the  MS.  might  be  published ;  but,  that  no 
possible  question  might  be  raised  hereafter  on  that  part  of 


'  Letters  and  Memorials,^  353 

the  matter,  he  left  tlie  determination  of  the  time  to  myself, 
and  requested  others  to  accept  my  judgment  as  his  own. 

Under  these  conditions  the  *  Letters  and  Memorials '  re- 
mained in  my  hands.  At  the  date  of  his  will  of  1873  he 
adhered  to  his  old  resolution,  that  of  himself  there  should 
be  no  biography,  and  that  these  letters  and  these  letters 
alone  should  be  the  future  record  of  him.  Within  a  few 
weeks  or  months,  however,  he  discovered  that  various  per- 
sons who  had  been  admitted  to  partial  intimacy  with  him 
were  busy  upon  his  history.  If  he  was  to  figure  before  the 
world  at  all  after  his  death  he  preferred  that  there  should 
be  an  authentic  portrait  of  him  ;  and  therefore  at  the  close 
of  this  same  year  (1873)  again,  without  note  or  warning,  he 
sent  me  his  own  and  his  wife's  private  papers,  journals, 
correspondence,  'reminiscences,'  and  other  fragments,  a 
collection  overwhelming  from  its  abundance,  for  of  his 
letters  from  the  earliest  period  of  his  life  his  family  and 
friends  had  preserved  every  one  that  he  had  written,  while 
he  in  turn  seemed  to  have  destroyed  none  of  theirs.  '  Take 
them,'  he  said  to  me,  '  and  do  what  you  can  with  them. 
All  I  can  say  to  you  is.  Burn  freely.  If  you  have  any 
affection  for  me,  the  more  you  burn  the  better.' 

I  bunit  nothing,  and  it  was  well  that  I  did  not,  for  a 
year  before  his  death  he  desired  me,  when  I  had  done  with 
these  MSS.  to  give  them  to  his  niece.  But  indeed  every- 
thing of  his  own  which  I  found  in  these  papers  tended  only 
to  raise  his  character.  They  showed  him,  in  all  his  out- 
ward conduct,  the  same  noble,  single-minded,  simple- 
hearted,  affectionate  man  which  I  myself  had  always  known 
him  to  be ;  while  his  inner  nature,  with  this  fresh  insight 
into  it,  seemed  ever  grander  and  more  imposing. 

The  new  task  which  had  been  laid  upon  me  complicated 
the  problem  of  the  '  Letters  and  Memorials.'  My  first  hope 
was,  that,  in  the  absence  of  further  definite  instructions 


354  CarlyU^s  Life  in  London. 

from  himself,  I  might  interweave  parts  of  Mrs.  Carljle's 
letters  with  his  own  correspondence  in  an  ordinary  narra- 
tive, passing  lightly  over  the  rest,  and  touching  the  danger- 
ous places  only  so  far  as  was  unavoidable.  In  this  view  I 
wrote  at  leisure  the  greatest  part  of  '  the  jS.rst  forty  years ' 
of  his  life.  The  evasion  of  the  difficulty  was  perhaps 
cowardly,  but  it  was  not  unnatural.  I  was  forced  back, 
however,  into  the  straighter  and  better  course. 


CHAPTER  XXXm. 
A.D.  1872.    ^T.  77. 

Weariness  of  life — History  of  the  Norse  Kings— Portrait  of  John 
Knox — Death  of  John  Mill  and  the  Bishop  of  Winchestei^— 
Mill  and  Carlyle — Irish  policy  of  Mr.  Gladstone — The 
Prussian  Order  of  Merit — Offer  of  the  Grand  Cross  of  the 
Bath — ^Why  refused— Lord  Beaconsfield  and  the  Russo- 
Turkish  war — Letter  to  the  'Times.' 

Caeltle  lived  on  after  this  more  easy  in  his  mind,  but 
otherwise  weary  and  *  heavy  laden ';  for  life,  after  he  ha<i 
lost  the  power  of  working,  was  become  a  mere  burden  to 
him.  Often  and  often  he  spoke  enviously  of  the  Roman 
method  of  taking  leave  of  it.  He  had  read  of  a  senator  in 
Trajan's  time  who,  slipping  upon  the  pavement  from  in- 
firmity, kissed  the  ground,  exclaiming  *  Proserpine,  I 
come  I '  put  his  house  in  order,  and  ended.  Greatly  Carlyle 
approved  of  such  a  termination,  and  regretted  that  it  was 
no  longer  permitted.  He  did  not  conceive,  he  said,  that 
his  Maker  would  resent  the  voluntary  appearance  before 
Him  of  a  poor  creature  who  had  laboured  faithfully  at  his 
task  till  he  could  labour  no  more.  He  made  one  more 
effort  to  produce  something.  He  had  all  along  admired  the 
old  Norsemen,  hard  of  hand  and  true  of  speech,  as  the  root 
of  all  that  was  noblest  in  the  English  nation.  Even  the 
Scandinavian  gods  were  nearer  to  him  than  the  Hebrew. 
With  someone  to  write  for  him,  he  put  together  a  sketch  of 
the  Norse  kings.     The  stories,  as  he  told  them  to  me,  set 


356  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

off  by  his  voice  and  maimer,  were  vigorous  and  beautiful ; 
the  end  of  Olaf  Trygveson,  for  instance,  who  went  down 
in  battle  into  the  fiord  in  his  gilded  armour.  But  the 
greater  part  of  them  were  weakened  by  the  process  of  dic- 
tation. The  thing,  when  finished,  seemed  diluted  moon- 
shine and  did  not  please  him. 

Journal. 

February  15,  1872. — Finished  yesterday  that  long  rigmarole 
upon  the  Norse  Kings.  Uncertain  now  what  to  do  with  it ;  if 
not  at  once  throw  it  into  the  fire.  It  is  worth  nothing  at  all, 
has  taught  me  at  least  how  impossible  the  problem  is  of  writing 
anything  in  the  least  like  myself  by  dictation  ;  how  the  pres- 
ence of  a  third  party  between  my  thoughts  and  me  is  fatal  to 
any  process  of  clear  thought. 

He  wrote  also  a  criticism  on  the  portraits  of  John  Ejiox, 
in  which  he  succeeded  in  demolishing  the  authority  of  the 
accepted  likenesses,  without,  however,  completely  estab- 
lishing that  of  another  which  he  desired  to  substitute  for 
them.  He  had  great  insight  into  the  human  face,  and  into 
the  character  which  lay  behind  it.  '  Aut  Knox  aut  Diabo- 
lus,'  he  said,  in  showing  me  the  new  picture ;  '  if  not  Knox 
who  can  it  be  ?  A  man  with  that  face  left  his  mark  be- 
hind him.'  But  physiognomy  may  be  relied  upon  too  far, 
and  the  outward  evidence  was  so  weak  that  in  his  stronger 
days  he  would  not  have  felt  so  confident. 

This,  with  an  appendix  to  his  '  Life  of  Schiller,'  was  the 
last  of  his  literary  labours.  He  never  tried  any  thing  again. 
The  pencil  entries  in  the  Journal  grew  scantier,  more  illeg- 
ible, and  at  last  ceased  altogether.  The  will  was  resolute  as 
ever,  but  the  hand  was  powerless  to  obey.  I  gather  up  the 
fragments  that  remain. 

July  12,  1872. — A  long  interval  filled  only  with  pitiful  mis- 
eries and  confusions  best  forgotten.     Empty  otherwise,  except 


Death  of  FHends.  H57 

for  here  and  there  an  hour  of  serious,  penitent  reflection,  and  of 
a  sorrow  which  could  be  called  loving,  calm,  and  in  some  sort 
Siicred  and  devout !  Pure  clear  black  amidst  the  general  muddy- 
gloom.  Item,  generally  if  attainable,  two  hours  (after  10.30 
P.M.)  of  re<ading  in  some  really  good  book — Shakespeare  latterly 
— which  amidst  the  silence  of  all  the  Universe  is  a  useful  and 
purifying  kind  of  thing.  Reminiscences  too  without  limit.  Of 
prospects  nothing  possible  except  what  has  been  common  to  me 
with  all  wise  old  men  since  the  world  began.  Close  by  lies  the 
great  secret,  but  irajxinetrable  (is,  was,  and  must  be  so)  to  ter- 
restrial thoughts  for  evermore.  Perhaps  somethmg !  Perhaps 
not  nothing,  after  all.  (jrod's  will,  there  also,  be  supreme.  If 
we  are  to  meet  I  Oh,  Almighty  Father,  if  we  are,  but  silence ! 
silence! 

The  end  of  the  summer  of  18Y2  was  spent  at  Seaton  with 
Lady  Ashburton,  whose  affectionate  care  was  unwearied. 
In  a  life  now  falling  stagnant  it  is  unnecessary  to  follow 
closely  henceforth  the  occupation  of  times  and  seasons. 
The  chief  points  only  need  be  now  noted.  The  rocket  was 
burnt  out  and  the  stick  falling.  In  November  of  that  year 
Emerson  came  again  to  England,  and  remained  here  and 
on  the  Continent  till  the  May  following.  He  had"  brought 
his  daughter  with  him,  and  from  both  of  them  Carlyle  re- 
ceived a  faint  pleasure.  Bat  even  a  friend  so  valued  could 
do  little  for  him.  His  contemporaries  were  dropping  all 
round ;  John  Mill  died.  Bishop  Wilberforce  died  ;  every- 
one seemed  to  die  except  himself. 

Journal. 

June  9,  1873. — 'More  and  more  dreary,  barren,  base,  and 
ugly  seem  to  me  all  the  aspects  of  this  poor  diminishing  quack 
world — fallen  openly  anarchic — doomed  to  a  death  which  one 
can  only  wish  to  be  speedy.  .  .  .  Death  of  John  Millat  Avignon 
about  a  month  ago,  awakening  what  a  world  of  reflections, 
emotions,  and  remembrances,  fit  to  be  totally  kept  silent  in  the 
present  mad  explosion  (among  the  maddest  I  have  seen  about 


358  Carlyys  Life  in  London. 

anyone)  of  universal  threnodying  penny-a-limsm ;  not  at  any 
time  a  melodious  phenomenon.' 

I  had  mjseK  written  to  him  on  the  Bishop  of  Winches- 
ter's death.     He  answered : — 

July  29,  1873. — '  I  altogether  sympathize  in  what  you  say  of 
poor  Sam  of  Winchester.  The  event  is  pitiful,  tragical,  and 
altogether  sadder  to  me  than  I  could  have  expected.  He  was 
far  from  being  a  bad  man,  and  was  a  most  dexterous,  stout, 
and  clever  one,  and  I  have  often  exchanged  pleasant  dialogues 
with  him  for  the  last  thirty  years — finished  now — silent  for  all 
eternity !  I  find  he  was  really  of  rehgious  nature,  and  thought 
in  secret,  in  spite  of  his  bishophood,  very  much  in  regard  to  re- 
ligion as  we  do. ' 

His  remarks  on  Mill  and  Mill's  autobiography  are  curious. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  May  10,  1873. 
Yesterday,  on  stepping  out  into  the  street,  I  was  told  that 
John  Mill  was  dead.  I  had  heard  no  whisper  of  such  a  thing 
before ;  and  a  great  black  sheet  of  mournful,  more  or  less  tragic, 
memories — not  about  Mill  alone — rushed  down  upon  me.  Poor 
Mill!  He  too,  has  worked  out  his  life  drama  in  sight  of  me; 
and  that  scene  has  closed  too  before  my  old  eyes — though  he 
was  so  much  my  junior.  Goose  N.  came  down  to  me  to  day — 
very  dirty — ^very  enthusiastic— very  stupid  and  confused,  with 
a  daily  newspaper  '  containing  two  articles,  ineffably  sublime 
and  heart-interesting  upon  Mill.'  Two  more  blustrous  bags  of 
empty  wind  I  have  seldom  read.  'Immortal  fame!'  'First 
spirit  of  his  age ! '  '  Thinker  of  thinkers ! '  What  a  piece  of 
work  is  man  with  a  penny-a-liner  pen  in  his  hand. 

To  the  Same. 

November  5. 

You  have  lost  nothing  by  missing  the  autobiography  of  Mill. 
I  have  never  read  a  more  uninteresting  book,  nor  I  should  say 
a  sillier,  by  a  man  of  sense,  integrity,  and  seriousness  of  mind. 


Mill  uml  Varlyle.  369 

The  penny-a-liuei-s  were  very  busy  with  it,  I  believe,  for  a  week 
or  two,  but  were  evidently  pausing  in  doubt  and  difficulty  by 
the  time  the  second  edition  came  out.  It  is  wholly  tlie  life  of  a 
logic-chopping  engine,  little  more  of  human  in  it  than  if  it  had 
been  done  by  a  thing  of  mechanized  iron.  Autobiography  of  a 
steam-engine,  perhaps,  you  may  sometimes  read  it.  As  a  mourn- 
ful psychical  curiosity,  but  in  no  other  point  of  view,  can  it  inter- 
est anybody.  I  suppose  it  will  deliver  us  henceforth  from  the 
cock-a-leerie  crow  about  '  the  Gi*eat  Thinker  of  his  Age.'  Wel- 
come, though  inconsiderable  I  The  thought  of  poor  Mill  alto- 
gether, and  of  his  life  and  history  in  this  poor  muddy  world, 
gives  me  real  pain  and  sorrow. 

Such  a  sentence,  so  expressed,  is  a  melancholy  ending 
to  the  affectionate  intimacy  which  had  once  existed  be- 
tween Mill  and  Carlyle.  At  heart,  perhaps,  they  remained 
agreed — al  least  as  much  agreed  as  Carlyle  and  Bishop 
Wilberf orce  could  have  been ;  both  believed  that  the  ex- 
isting social  arrangements  in  this  country  were  incurably 
bad,  that  in  the  conditions  under  which  the  great  mass  of 
human  beings  in  all  civilised  countries  now  lived,  moved, 
and  liad  their  being,  there  was  at  present  such  deep  injus- 
tice that  the  system  which  permitted  such  things  could  not 
be  of  long  endurance.  Carlyle  felt  this  to  his  latest 
hours.  "Without  justice  society  is  sick,  and  will  continue 
sick  till  it  dies.  The  modern  world,  incapable  of  looking 
duty  in  the  face,  attempts  to  silence  complaint  w^th  issuing 
flash-notes  on  the  Bank  of  liberty,  and  will  leave  all  men 
free  to  scramble  for  as  much  as  they  can  secure  of  the 
swine's  trough.  This  is  the  notion  which  it  forms  to  itself 
of  justice,  and  of  the  natural  aid  which  human  beings  are 
bound  to  give  to  one  another.  Of  the  graces  of  mutual 
kindliness,  of  the  dignity  and  beauty  which  rise  out  of  or- 
ganically-formed human  society,  it  politically  knows  noth- 
ing, and  chooses  to  know  nothing.  The  battle  is  no  longer, 
even  to  the  strong,  who  have,  at  least,  the  one  virtue  of 


360  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

courage  ;  the  battle  is  to  the  ciinning,  in  whom  is  no  virtue 
at  all.  In  Carlyle's  opinion  no  remedy  lay  in  political 
liberty.  Anarchy  only  lay  there,  and  wretchedness,  and 
ruin.  Mill  had  struck  into  that  road  for  himseK.  Carlyle 
had  gone  into  the  other.  They  had  drifted  far  apart,  and 
were  now  separated  for  ever.  Time  will  decide  between 
them.  Mill's  theory  of  things  is  still  in  the  ascendant. 
England  is  moving  more  eagerly  than  ever  in  the  direction 
of  enfranchisement,  believing  that  there  lies  the  Land  of 
Promise.  The  orators  echo  Mill's  doctrines :  the  millions 
hsten  and  beheve.  The  outward  aspect  of  things  seems  to 
say  that  Mill  did,  and  that  Carlyle  did  not,  understand  the 
conditions  of  the  age.  But  the  way  is  long,  the  expected 
victories  are  still  to  be  won — are  postponed  till  the  day 
when  '  England,  the  mother  of  free  nations,  herself  is  free.' 
There  are  rapids  yet  to  be  stemmed,  or  cataracts  to  descend, 
and  it  remains  uncertain  whether  on  arriving  (if  we  do 
arrive)  at  a  finished  democracy,  it  will  be  a  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,  or  be  a  waste  heaving  ocean  strewed 
with  the  wrecks  of  dead  virtues  and  ruined  institutions. 

Carlyle  was  often  taunted — once,  I  think,  by  Mr.  Lecky 
— with  believing  in  nothing  but  the  divine  right  of  strength. 
To  me,  as  I  read  him,  he  seems  to  say,  on  the  contrary,  that, 
as  this  universe  is  constructed,  it  is  'right'  only  that  is 
strong.     He  says  himself : — 

With  respect  to  that  poor  heresy  of  might  being  the  symbol 
of  right  'to  a  certain  great  and  venerable  author,'  I  shall  have 
to  tell  Lecky  one  day  that  quite  the  converse  or  reverse  is  the 
great  and  venerable  author's  real  opinion — ^namely,  that  right 
is  the  eternal  symbol  of  might :  as  I  hope  he,  one  day  descend- 
ing miles  and  leagues  beyond  his  present  philosophy,  will,  with 
amazement  and  real  gratification,  discover  ;  and  that,  in  fact, 
he  probably  never  met  with  a  son  of  Adam  more  contemptuous 
of  might  except  where  it  rests  on  the  above  origin. 


Iriah  Potioy  of  Mr.  Gladntoru.  361 

Old  and  weary  as  he  was,  the  persistent  belief  of  people 
in  the  blessings  of  democracy,  and  the  confidence  which 
they  gave  to  leaders  who  were  either  playing  on  their  credu- 
ty  or  were  themselves  the  dupes  of  their  own  phrases,  dis- 
tressed and  provoked  Carlyle.  He  was  aware  that  he  could 
do  nothing,  that  self-government  by  count  of  heads  would 
be  tried  out  to  the  end  before  it  would  be  abandoned ;  but 
in  his  conversation  and  letters  he  spoke  his  opinions  freely 
— especially  his  indignation  at  the  playing  with  fire  in  Ire- 
land, which  the  great  popular  chief  had  begun. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  March  7, 1878. 

The  whole  world  is  in  a  mighty  fuss  here  about  Gladstone  and 
his  Bill  :  '  the  attack  on  the  third  branch  of  the  Upas  Tree, 
and  the  question  what  is  to  become  of  him  in  consequence  of  it. 
To  myself  from  the  beginning  it  seemed  the  coDSummation  of 
contemptibilities  and  petty  trickeries  on  his  part,  one  of  the 
most  transparent  bits  of  thimblerigging  to  secure  the  support  of 
his  sixty  Irish  votes,  the  Pope's  brass  band,  and  to  smuggle  the 
education  viohn  into  the  hands  of  Cullen  and  the  sacred  sons  of 
Belial  and  the  scarlet  woman,  I  had  ever  seen  from  him  before. 

And  a^redn : — 

March  23,  1873. 

Gladstone  appears  to  me  one  of  the  contemptiblest  men  I  ever 
looked  on.  A  poor  Ritualist ;  almost  spectral  kind  of  phantasm 
of  a  man — nothing  in  him  but  forms  and  ceremonies  and  out- 
side wrappages;  incapable  of  seeing  veritably  any  fact  whatever, 
but  seeing,  crediting,  and  laying  to  heart  the  mere  clothes  of  the 
fact,  and  fancying  that  all  the  rest  does  not  exist.  Let  him  fight 
his  own  battle,  in  the  name  of  Beelzebub  the  god  of  Ekron,  i?rtio 
seems  to  be  his  God.    Poor  phantasm ! 

He  was  better  pleased  with  a  lecture  on  English  notione 

*  Irl»b  EducaUon  BUI. 


362  Carlyle's  Life  in  London, 

of  government,  delivered  by  Sir  James  Stephen,  at  the 
Philosophical  Institution,  at  Edinburgh : — 

I  found  it  (he  says,  November  15)  a  very  curious  piece  indeed, 
delineating  one  of  the  most  perfect  dust-whirls  of  Administra- 
tive Nihilism,  and  absolute  absurdities  and  impotences,  more  like 
an  electric  government  apparatus  for  Bedlam,  elected  and  sub- 
mitted to  by  Bedlam,  than  any  sane  apparatus  ever  known 
before.  And  strangely  enough  it  is  interlarded  with  the 
loyallest  assurances  every  now  and  then  that  it  is  the  one  form 
of  government  for  us  for  an  indefinite  period,  and  that  no  change 
for  the  better  can  be  practically  contemplated.  He  is  a  very 
honest  man,  Stephen,  with  a  huge  heavy  stroke  of  work  in  him. 

Of  Stephen,  Euskin,  and  one  or  two  others,  Carlyle 
could  still  think  with  a  degree  of  comfort.  He  would 
gladly  have  struck  one  more  blow  against  '  things  not  true '; 
for  his  intellect  was  strong  as  ever  and  his  sight  as  piercing ; 
but  he  sadly  found  that  it  was  not  to  be.  On  December  6 
he  made  the  last  pencil  entry,  or  the  last  that  is  legible,  in 
his  Journal.  From  this  time  his  hand  failed  him  entirely, 
and  the  private  window  that  opened  into  his  heart  was 
closed  up — no  dictation  being  there  admissible. 

December  6,  1873. — Day  before  yesterday  was  my  pOor  birth- 
day, attended  with  some  ceremonial  greetings  and  more  or  less 
sincere  expressions  of  regard.  Welcome  these  latter,  though 
unimportant.  To  myself  the  serious  and  solemn  fact,  'Thy 
seventy-eighth  year  is  finished  then.'  Nor  had  that  in  it  an  im- 
pressiveness  of  too  much  depth ;  perhaps  rather  of  too  little.  A 
life  without  work  in  it,  as  mine  now  is,  has  less  and  less  worth 
to  me ;  nay,  sometimes  a  feeling  of  disgrace  and  blame  is  in  me ; 
the  poor  soul  still  vividly  enough  alive,  but  struggling  in  vain 
under  the  strong  imprisonment  of  the  dying  or  half-dead  body. 
For  many  months  past,  except  for  idle  reading,  I  am  pitifully 
idle.  Shame,  shame!  I  say  to  myself,  but  cannot  help  it. 
Great  and  strange  glimpses  of  thought  come  to  me  at  intervals, 
but  to  prosecute  and  fix  them  down  is  denied  me.  Weak,  too 
weak,  the  flesh,  though  the  spirit  is  willing. 


The  Ord^  of  Merit,  363 

He  seemed  to  be  drifting  calmly  towards  the  end,  as  if  of 
outward  incidents  or  outward  activities  there  would  be 
nothing  more  to  record.  But  there  was  still  something 
wanting,  and  he  was  not  to  leave  the  world  without  an  open 
recognition  of  his  services  to  mankind.  In  January,  1874, 
there  came  a  rumour  from  Berlin  that  Prussia  proposed  to 
reward  the  author  of  the  *  Life  of  Frederic  the  Great,'  by 
conferring  on  him  the  Order  of  Merit,  which  Frederic  him- 
self had  founded.  Possibly  the  good  turn  which  he  had 
done  to  Germany  by  his  letter  during  the  siege  of  Paris, 
might  have  contributed  to  draw  the  Emperor's  attention 
to  him.  But  his  great  history,  translated  and  universally 
accepted  by  Frederic's  countrymen  as  the  worthiest  account 
of  their  national  hero,  was  itself  claim  sufficient  without  ad- 
ditional motive.  Carlyle  had  never  been  ambitious  of 
public  honours.  He  had  never  even  thought  of  such 
things,  and  the  news,  when  it  first  reached  Cheyne  Row, 
was  received  without  particular  flutter  of  heart.  *  Were  it 
ever  so  well  meant,'  he  said,  '  it  can  be  of  no  value  to  me 
whatever.  Do  thee  neither  ill  na  gude.'  The  Order  of 
Merit  was  the  most  flattering  distinction  which  could  have 
been  offered  him,  for  it  really  means  *  merit,'  and  must  be 
earned,  even  by  the  Princes  of  the  Blood.  Of  course  he 
could  not  refuse  it,  and,  at  the  bottom,  I  am  sure  that  he 
was  pleased.  Yet  it  seemed  as  if  he  would  not  let  himself 
enjoy  anything  which  she  was  no  longer  alive  to  enjoy  with 
him. 

The  day  before  yesterday  (he  tells  his  brother  on  the  14th  of 
February)  his  Prussian  Excellency  forwarded  to  me  by  register- 
ed parcel  all  the  documents  and  insignia  connected  with  our 
sublime  elevation  to  the  Prussian  Oixler  of  Merit.  Due  reply 
sent ;  and  so  we  have  done,  thank  Heaven,  with  this  sublime 
nonentity.  I  feel  about  it,  after  the  fact  is  over,  quite  as  em- 
phatically as  I  did  at  first, — that  had  they  sent  me  a  quarter  of 


364  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

a  pound  of  good  tobacco,  the  addition  to  my  happiness  would 
probably  have  been  suitabler  and  greater. 

To  his  friends  this  act  of  the  German  Government  was 
a  high  gratification,  if  to  himself  it  was  a  slight  one.  The 
pleasure  which  men  receive  from  such  marks  of  respect  is 
in  most  cases  'satisfied  vanity';  and  Carljle  never  thought 
of  his  own  performances,  except  as  'duty'  indifferently 
done. 

We,  however,  were  all  glad  of  it,  the  more  so  because  I 
then  believed  that  when  I  wrote  his  life  I  should  have  to  say 
that  although  for  so  many  years  he  had  filled  so  great  a  place 
amongst  us,  and  his  character  was  as  noble  as  his  intellect, 
the  Government,  or  Governments,  of  his  own  country — 
Tory,  Liberal,  or  whatever  they  might  be — had  passed  him 
over  without  notice.  The  reproach,  however — ^f  or  reproach 
it  would  have  been — ^was  happily  removed  while  there  was 
yet  time. 

It  is  rather  for  their  own  sakes,  than  for  the  recipients  of 
their  favours,  that  Governments  ought  to  recognise  illustri- 
ous services.  The  persons  whom  they  select  for  distinction 
are  a  test  of  their  own  worth. 

Everyone  remembers  the  catastrophe  of  1874.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  but  lately  '  the  people's  William,'  the  national 
idol,  was  flung  from  his  pedestal.  The  country  had  wearied 
of  him.  Adulation  had  soured  into  contempt,  and  those 
who  had  chanted  his  praises  the  loudest  professed,  like  the 
Roman  populace  on  the  fall  of  Sejanus,  that  they  had  never 
admired  him  at  all.  At  the  time,  the  general  opinion  was 
that  his  star  had  set  for  ever,  and  Carlyle  thought  so  too  till 
he  saw  who  it  was  that  the  people  had  chosen  to  replace 
him.  His  mind  misgave  him  then  that  the  greater  faults 
of  his  successor  would  lift  Mr.  Gladstone  back  again  to  a 
yet  more  giddy  eminence  and  greater  opportunities  of  evil. 
But  this  was  not  the  world's  impression,  and  Carlyle  tried 


The  Conservatives  in  Power,  365 

to  hide  it  from  himself  as  long  as  he  could.  Little  san- 
guine as  he  was,  he  flattered  himself  at  the  time  of  the 
election  that  the  better  spirit  of  ancient  England  was  awake 
again,  that  she  had  sickened  of  her  follies  and  was  minded 
in  earnest  to  put  a  curb  between  the  teeth  of  anarchy.  It 
was  a  bright  flash  of  hope,  and  might  have  been  more  than 
a  hope  if  the  Conservatives  could  have  wisely  used  the 
chance  which  was  once  more  offered  them.  Unfortunately, 
the  conditions  of  the  time  permitted  only  the  alternative  of 
Mr.  Disraeli  and  Mr.  Gladstone — products,  both  of  them, 
of  stump  oratory.  From  the  author  of  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1867  he  could  only  look  for  stage  tricks  or  illusions.  No 
wise  action  could  come  of  such  a  man,  and  the  pendulum 
would  too  surely  swing  back  to  its  old  place.  Of  the  two, 
however,  since  one  or  the  other  was  inevitable,  he  liked 
Disraeli  the  best.  Disraeh,  though  he  might  delude  the 
world,  did  not  delude  himself,  and  could  see  facts  as  they 
were  if  he  cared  to  see  them.  At  any  rate  there  was  a  res- 
pite from  the  disintegrating  process,  and  he  might  hope  to 
live  out  his  remaining  years  unvexed  by  any  more  of  it. 

Mr.  Disraeli  could  not  have  been  unaware  of  the  unfa- 
vourable light  in  which  he  was  regarded  by  Carlyle,  but  he 
by  no  means  reciprocated  the  feeling.  He  was  essentially 
goodnatured,  as  indeed  Carlyle  always  acknowledged,  and 
took  any  blow  that  might  be  aimed  at  him  with  undisturbed 
composure.  He  had  been  a  man  of  letters  before  he  was  a 
politician.  He  was  proud  of  his  profession  and  of  the  distinc- 
tion which  he  had  himself  conquered  as  a  novehst.  He 
was  personally  unacquainted  with  Carlyle ;  they  had  moved 
in  different  circles,  and  I  believe  had  never  met.  But  in 
early  life  he  had  been  struck  with  the  *  French  Revolution ' ; 
he  had  imitated  the  style  of  it,  and  distinctly  regarded  the 
author  of  that  book  as  the  most  important  of  living  writers. 
Perhaps  he  had  heard  of  the  bestowal  of  the  Ord*  /  of 


366  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

Merit,  and  had  felt  that  a  scandal  would  rest  on  England  if 
a  man  whom  Germany  could  single  out  for  honour  was  left 
unnoticed  in  his  own  land.  Perhaps  the  consideration 
might  have  been  forced  upon  him  from  some  private  source. 
At  any  rate,  he  forgot,  if  he  had  ever  resented,  Carlyle's 
assaults  upon  him,  and  determined  to  use  his  own  elevation 
as  Premier  "to  confer  some  high  mark  of  distinction  on  a 
person  who  was  so  universally  loved  and  admired.  It  was 
indeed  time,  for  Carlyle  hitherto  had  been  unnoticed  en- 
tirely, and  had  been  left  without  even  the  common  marks 
of  confidence  and  recognition  which  far  inferior  men  are 
seldom  without  an  opportunity  of  receiving.  He  would  not 
have  accepted  a  pension  even  when  in  extremity  of  poverty. 
But  a  pension  had  never  been  offered.  Eminent  men  of 
letters  were  generally  appointed  trustees  of  the  British 
Museum ;  Carlyle's  name  had  not  been  found  among  them. 
The  post  of  Historiographer  Boyal  for  Scotland  had  been 
lately  vacant.  This,  at  least,  his  friends  expected  for  him ; 
but  he  had  been  intentionally  passed  over.  The  neglect 
was  now  atoned  for. 

The  letters  which  were  exchanged  on  this  occasion  are 
so  creditable  to  all  persons  concerned,  that  I  print  as  many 
of  them  as  I  possess  complete — in  jperjpetuam  rei  memo- 
riam. 

To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq. 

(Conflclential.)  Bournemouth  :  December  37,  1874. 

Sir,  — ^A  Government  should  recognise  intellect.  It  elevates 
and  sustains  the  tone  of  a  nation.  *  But  it  is  an  office  which, 
adequately  to  fulfil,  requires  both  courage  and  discrimination, 
as  there  is  a  chance  of  falling  into  favouritism  and  patronising 
mediocrity,  which,  instead  of  elevating  the  national  feeling, 
would  eventually  degrade  or  debase  it.  In  recommending  Her 
Majesty  to  fit  out  an  Arctic  Expedition,  and  in  suggesting  other 
measures  of  that  class,  her  Government  have  shown  their  sym- 


Offer  of  the  Grcmd  Cross.  867 

pathy  with  Science  ;  and  they  wish  that  the  position  of  High 
Letters  should  be  equally  acknowledged;  but  this  is  not  so 
easy,  because  it  is  in  the  necessity  of  things  that  the  test  of  merit 
cannot  be  so  precise  in  literature  as  in  science.  When  I  con- 
sider the  literary  world,  I  see  only  two  living  names  whicli  I 
would  fain  believe  will  be  remembered,  and  they  stand  out  in 
uncontested  superiority.  One  is  that  of  a  poet — if  not  a  great 
poet,  a  real  one  ;  the  other  is  your  own. 

I  have  advised  the  Queen  to  offer  to  confer  a  baronetcy  on 
Mr.  Tennyson,  and  the  same  distinction  should  be  at  your  com- 
mand if  you  liked  it ;  but  I  have  reniembered  that,  like  myself, 
you  are  childless,  and  may  not  care  for  hereditary  honours.  I 
have,  therefore,  made  up  my  mind,  if  agreeable  to  yourself,  to 
recommend  to  Her  Majesty  to  confer  on  you  the  highest  dis- 
tinction for  merit  at  her  conmaand,  and  which,  I  believe,  has 
never  yet  been  conferred  by  her  except  for  direct  services  to  the 
State,  and  that  is  the  Grand  Cross  of  the  Bath. 

I  will  speak  with  frankness  on  another  point.  It  is  not  well 
that  in  the  sunset  of  your  life  you  should  be  disturbed  by  com- 
mon cares.  I  see  no  reason  why  a  great  author  should  not  re- 
ceive from  the  nation  a  pension,  as  well  as  a  lawyer  or  states- 
man. Unfortunately,  the  personal  power  of  Her  Majesty  in 
this  respect  is  limited  ;  but  still  it  is  in  the  Queen's  capacity  to 
settle  on  an  individual  an  amount  equal  to  a  good  fellowship  ; 
and  which  was  cheerfully  accepted  and  enjoyed  by  the  great 
spirit  of  Johnson  and  the  pure  integrity  of  Southey. 

Have  the  goodness  to  let  me  know  your  feelings  on  these 
subjects. 

I  have  the  honour  to  remain,  Sir, 

Yoiu*  faithful  Servant, 

B.   DiSRAEU. 

To  the  Right  Hon.  B.  Disraeli. 

5,  Cbeyne  Row,  Chelsea  : 

December  29,  1874 . 

Sir, — Yesterday,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  had  the  honour  to 
receive  your  letter  containing  a  magnificent  proposal  for  my 
benefit,  which  will  be  memorable  to  me  for  the  rest  of  my  life. 
Allow  me  to  say  that  the  letter,  both  in  purport  and  expression, 


368  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

IS  worthy  to  be  called  magnanimous  and  noble,  that  it  is  with- 
out example  in  my  own  poor  history  ;  and  I  think  it  is  unex- 
ampled, too,  in  the  history  of  governing  persons  towards  men 
of  letters  at  the  present,  as  at  any  time  ;  and  that  I  will  care- 
fully preserve  it  as  one  of  the  things  precious  to  memory  and 
heart.  A  real  treasure  or  benefit  it,  independent  of  all  results 
from  it. 

This  said  to  yourseK  and  reposited  with  many  feelings  in  my 
own  grateful  mind,  I  have  only  to  add  that  your  splendid  and 
generous  proposals  for  my  practical  behoof,  must  not  any  of  them 
take  effect ;  that  titles  of  honour  are,  in  all  degrees  of  them,  out 
of  keeping  with  the  tenour  of  my  own  poor  existence  hitherto  in 
this  epoch  of  the  world,  and  would  be  an  encumbrance,  not  a 
furtherance  to  me  ;  that  as  to  money,  it  has,  after  long  years  of 
rigorous  and  frugal,  but  also  (thank  God,  and  those  that  are 
gone  before  me)  not  degrading  poverty,  become  in  this  latter 
time  amply  abundant,  even  superabundant ;  more  of  it,  too, 
now  a  hindrance,  not  a  help  to  me  ;  so  that  royal  or  other 
bounty  would  be  more  than  thrown  away  in  my  case  ;  and  in 
brief,  that  except  the  feeling  of  your  fine  and  noble  conduct  on 
this  occasion,  which  is  a  real  and  permanent  possession,  there 
cannot  anything  be  done  that  would  not  now  be  a  sorrow  rather 
than  a  pleasure. 

With  thanks  more  than  usually  sincere, 
I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, 

Your  obliged  and  obedient  servant, 

T.  Carlyle. 

To  the  Countess  of  Derby. 

5,  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea  : 

December  30,  1874. 

Dear  Lady, — As  I  believe  you  to  have  been  the  originator, 
contriver,  and  architect  of  this  beautiful  air  mansion  intended 
for  my  honour  and  benefit,  and  as  the  Premier's  letter  appears 
to  me  very  beautiful  on  his  part,  I  venture  directly  to  send  you 
a  correct  copy  of  that  and  of  my  answer  to  it,  which  I  really  had 
a  regret  in  feeling  obliged  to  write ;  that  is  to  say,  in  reducing 
so  splendid  an  edifice  of  the  generous  mind  to  inexorable  noth- 
mg ;  though  I  do  say  still,  and  will  say  it,  the  generous  intention, 


Diaradi^e  Magnanimiiy,  363 

brought  ready  for  fulfilment  from  such  a  quarter,  will  ever  re- 
main a  beautiful  and  precious  poesession  for  me. 

Mr.  Disraeli's  letter  is  really  what  I  called  it,  magnanimous 
and  noble  on  his  part.  It  reveals  to  me,  after  all  the  hartl  things 
I  have  said  of  him,  a  new  and  unexpected  stratum  of  genial 
dignity  and  manliness  of  character  which  I  had  by  no  means 
given  him  credit  for.  It  is,  as  my  penitent  heart  admonishes 
me,  a  kind  of  '  heaping  coals  of  fire  on  my  head ; '  and  I  do  truly 
repent  and  promise  to  amend.  For  the  rest,  I  naturally  wish 
there  should  be  as  little  as  possible  said  about  this  transaction, 
though  almost  inevitably  the  secret  will  ooze  out  at  last.  In 
the  meanwhile  silence  from  us  all.  .  .  . 

Forgive  this  loose  rambling  letter.  Write  no  answer  to  it  till 
your  own  time  come,  and  on  the  whole  forgive  me  my  sins  gen- 
erally, or  think  of  me  as  mercifully  as  you  can.  With  my  re- 
spectful compliments  to  Lord  Derby,  and  most  loyal  wishes 
that  all  good  may  be  with  you  and  yours, 

I  remain,  dear  Lady, 
Your  attached  and  most  obedient, 

T.  Carlyle. 
To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  January  1, 1875. 
The  enclosed  letter  and  copy  of  my  answer  ought  to  go  to  you 
as  a  family  curiosity  and  secret.  Nobody  whatever  knows  of  it 
beyond  our  two  selves  here,  except  Lady  Derby,  whom  I  believe 
to  have  been  the  contriver  of  the  whole  affair.  You  would  have 
been  surprised,  all  of  you,  to  have  found  unexpectedly  your 
poor  old  brother  converted  into  Sir  Tom;  but  alas!  there  was 
no  danger  at  any  moment  of  such  a  catastrophe.  I  do,  however, 
truly  admire  the  magnanimity  of  Dizzy  in  regard  to  me.  He  is 
the  only  man  I  almost  never  spoke  of  except  with  contempt; 
and  if  there  is  anything  of  scurrility  anyAvheix?  chargeable 
against  me,  he  is  the  subject  of  it;  and  yet  see,  here  he  comes 
with  a  pan  of  hot  coals  for  my  guilty  head.  I  am,  on  the 
whole,  gratified  a  little  within  my  own  dark  heart  at  this  mark 
of  the  good-will  of  high  people— Dizzy  by  no  means  the  chief  of 
them — which  has  come  to  me  now  at  the  very  end,  when  I  can 
have  the  additional  pleasure  of  answering,  '  Alas,  friends !  it  is 
of  no  use  to  me,  and  I  will  not  have  it.'   Enough,  enough !  Re- 


370  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

turn  me  the  official  letter,  and  say  nothing  about  it  beyond  the 
walls  of  your  own  house. 

The  Government  was  unwilling  to  accept  the  refusal, 
and  great  private  efforts  were  tried  to  induce  him  to  recon- 
sider his  resolution.  It  was  intimated  to  him  that  Her 
Majesty  herself  would  regret  to  be  deprived  of  an  opportu- 
nity of  showing  the  estimation  which  she  felt  for  him.  But 
the  utter  unsuitableness  of  a '  title  of  honour '  to  a  person  of 
his  habits  and  nature,  was  more  and  more  obvious  to  him. 
'  The  Grand  Cross,'  he  said  to  me, '  would  be  like  a  cap  and 
bells  to  him.'  And  there  lay  below  a  yet  prouder  objec- 
tion. '  You  accepted  the  Order  of  Merit  \ '  I  said.  '  Yes,' 
he  answered,  '  but  that  is  a  reality,  never  given  save  for 

merit  only ;  while  this .'     The  Prussian  Order  besides 

did  not  require  him  to  change  his  style.     It  would  leave 
him,  as  it  found  him,  plain  Thomas  Carlyle. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  January  30,  1875. 

I  have  not  been  worse  in  health  since  you  last  heard  ;  in  fact, 
usually  rather  better  ;  and  at  times  there  come  glimpses  or 
bright  reminiscences  of  what  I  might,  in  the  language  of  flat- 
tery, call  health — very  singular  to  me  now,  wearing  out  my 
eightieth  year.  It  is  strange  and  wonderful  to  feel  these  glow- 
ings  out  again  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  clearness,  followed 
by  base  physical  confusions  of  feeble  old  age ;  and,  indeed,  daily 
I  am  taught  again  the  unfathomable  mystery  of  what  we  call  a 
soul,  radiant  with  heaven,  yet  capable  of  being  overclouded 
and,  as  it  were,  swallowed  up  by  the  bottomless  mud  it  has  to 
live  in,  in  this  world.  .  .  .  There  has  been  again  a  friendly  as- 
sault made  upon  me,  Disraeli  himself  the  instigator,  in  regard 
to  the  celebrated  '  baronetcy '  a£fair.  There  was  first  a  letter 
from  Lady  Derby.  Then  there  duly  came  the  interview  of 
Wednesday,  with  a  great  deal  of  earnest  and  friendly  persuasion 
to  accept  some  part  or  other  of  the  Ministerial  offers.     Then  at 


Trtbutea  of  Respect.  871 

last,  when  all  had  to  be  steadfastly  declined  as  an  evident  super- 
fluity and  impropriety,  a  frank  confession  from  her  ladyship 
that  I  had  done  well  to  answer  No  in  all  particulars.  The  inter- 
view was  not  painful  to  me,  but  rather  the  contrary ;  though  I 
really  was  sorry  to  disappoint — as  it  appeared  I  should  do— both 
Disraeli  and  a  much  hi^Iier  persou^e,  Queen's  Majesty  herself, 
namely.  Lady  D.  had  at  once  permission  from  me  to  break  the 
secret  of  the  matter,  and  to  tell  or  publish  whatever  she  pleased 
of  the  truth  about  it. 

So  this  small  circumstance  ended.  The  endeavour  to 
mark  his  sense  of  Carlyle's  high  deserts,  which  no  other 
Premier  had  thought  of  noticing,  will  be  remembered  here- 
after to  Lord  Beaconsiield's  credit,  when  *  peace  with 
honour '  is  laughed  at  or  forgotten.  The  story  was  a  nine 
days'  wonder,  with  the  usual  conflict  of  opinion.  The  final 
judgment  was  perhaps  most  completely  expressed  to  me  by 
the  conductor  of  an  omnibus :  '  Fine  old  gentleman  that, 
who  got  in  along  with  you,'  said  he  to  me,  as  Carlyle  went 
inside  and  I  mounted  to  the  roof,  *  we  thinks  a  deal  on 
liim  down  in  Chelsea,  we  does.'  *  Yes,'  I  said,  *  and  the 
Queen  thinks  a  deal  on  him  too,  for  she  has  just  offered  to 
make  him  a  Grand  Cross.'  *  Very  proper  of  she  to  think  of 
it,'  my  conductor  answered,  *  and  more  proper  of  he  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  'Tisn't  that  as  can  do  honour  to  the 
likes  of  he.' 

More  agreeable  to  Carlyle  were  the  tributes  of  respect 
which  poured  in  upon  Cheyne  Row  when  the  coming  De- 
cember brought  his  80th  birthday.  From  Scotland  came  a 
gold  medal ;  from  Berlin  two  remarkable  letters.  I  have 
copies  of  neither,  and  therefore  cannot  give  them.  One 
was  from  a  great  person  whom  I  do  not  know ;  the  other 
was  from  Prince  Bismarck,  written  in  his  own  large  clear 
hand,  which  Carlyle  showed  me,  but  I  dare  not  reproduce 
it  from  recollection. 


372  CarlyWs  Life  in  London, 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea  :  December  4,  1875. 

There  has  been  this  morning'  a  complete  whirlwind  of  birth 
.  day  gifts  and  congratulations  about  the  poor  arrival  of  my  eighti- 
eth and  probably  last  4th  of  December.  Prince  Bismarck,  you 
will  observe,  thinks  it  is  my  seventieth  birthday,  which  is  enough 
to  quench  any  vanity  one  might  have  on  a  missive  from  such  a 
man ;  but  I  own  to  being  truly  pleased  with  the  word  or  two  he 
says  about  '  Frederick  the  Great,'  which  seems  to  me  a  valuable 
memorial  and  certificate  of  the  pains  I  took  in  the  matter,  not 
unwelcome  in  the  circumstances. 

The  Scotch  medal  too  was  an  agreeable  tribute,  due,  he 
believed,  to  the  kind  exertions  of  Professor  Masson.  But 
he  was  naturally  shy,  and  disliked  display  when  he  was  him- 
self the  object  of  it.  The  excitement  worried  him.  He 
described  it  as  '  the  birthday  of  a  skinless  old  man ;  a  day 
of  the  most  miserable  agitation  he  could  recollect  in  his  life.' 
*  The  noble  and  most  unexpected  note  from  Bismarck,'  he 
said,  ^  was  the  only  real  glad  event  of  the  day.  The  crowd 
of  others,  including  that  of  the  Edinburgh  medal,  was  mere 
fret  and  fuss  to  me,  intrinsically  of  no  value  at  all,  at  least 
till  one  had  time  to  recognise,  from  the  distance,  that  kind- 
ness and  goodwill  had  lain  at  the  heart  of  every  part  of  it.' 

'  Kindness  and  goodwill,'  yet  not  in  the  form  which  he 
could  best  have  welcomed.  The  respect  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  genuine  though  it  be,  takes  the  colours  of  the  age, 
and  shows  itself  in  testimonials,  addresses,  compliments. 
'  They  say  I  am  a  great  man  now,'  he  observed  to  me,  '  but 
not  one  of  them  believes  my  report ;  not  one  of  them  will 
do  what  I  have  bidden  them  do.' 

His  time  was  chiefly  passed  in  reading  and  in  dictating 
letters.  He  was  still  ready  with  his  advice  to  all  who  asked 
for  it,  and  with  help  when  help  was  needed.  He  walked 
in  the  mornings  on  the  Chelsea  Embankment.    '  A  real  im- 


Advice  to  CarredponderUs,  873 

provement  that,'  as  he  reluctantly  admitted.  In  the  after- 
noon he  walked  in  the  park  with  me  or  some  other  friend ; 
enduig  generally  in  an  omnibus,  for  his  strength  wbh  visi- 
bly failing.  At  the  beginning  of  1876,  Mr.  Trevelyan 
brought  out  his  Life  of  his  uncle,  and  sent  Carlyle  a  copy. 
'  It  promises,'  he  writes  to  his  brother,  *  to  give  a  recognisa^ 
ble  likeness  of  the  great  Thomas  Babington,  whom,  to  say 
truth,  I  never  could  in  any  way  deeply  admire,  or  at  all  be- 
lieve in,  except  to  a  very  shallow  extent  You  remember 
bringiYig  me  his  first  '  Edinburgh  Review '  essay,'  one  night 
from  Annan  to  the  Gill,  and  reading  it  with  me  before  go- 
ing to  bed.  I  think  that  was  the  only  thing  of  his  I  ever 
read  with  lively  satisfaction.  Did  you  know  that  Macaulay 
is  understood  to  signify  '  the  son  of  Olaf ';  Aulay  Macaulay 
— Olaf,  son  of  Olaf?  Olaf  Trygveson  would  surely  be 
much  surprised  to  see  some  of  the  descendants  he  has  had. 
It  is  a  most  singular  biography,  and  psychologically  may  be 
considered  the  most  curious  ever  written.  No  man  known 
to  me  in  present  or  past  ages  ever  had,  with  a  peaceable 
composure  too,  so  infinite  a  stock  of  good  conceit  of  him- 
self. Trevelyan  has  done  his  task  cleverly  and  well.  I 
finished  it  with  a  rather  sensible  increase  of  wonder  at  the 
natural  character  of  him,  but  with  a  clearer  view  than  ever 
of  the  limited  nature  of  liis  world-admired  talent' 

Many  letters  have  been  sent  to  me  from  unknown  cor- 
respondents— ^young  men  probably  who  had  been  diverted 
from  clericalism  by  reading  his  books — and  had  consulted 
Carlyle  in  their  choice  of  a  life.  Here  is  one.  I  would 
give  many  more  had  I  room  for  them,  for  they  are  all  kind 
and  wise. 

Chelsea:  Mareb  80,  1876. 

Dear  Sir, — I  respect  your  conscientious  scruples  in  reg^ard  to 
choosing  a  profession,  and  wish  much  I  had  the  power  of  giv- 
*  On  Mlltoo. 


374  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

ing  you  advice  that  would  be  of  the  least  service.  But  that,  1 
fear,  in  my  total  ignorance  of  yourself  and  the  posture  of  your 
affairs,  is  pretty  nearly  impossible.  The  profession  of  the  law 
IS  in  many  respecttr;  a  most  honourable  one,  and  has  this  to  rec- 
onunend  it,  that  a  man  succeeds  there,  if  he  succeeds  at  all,  in 
an  independent  and  manful  manner,  by  force  of  his  own  talent 
and  behaviour,  without  needing  to  seek  patronage  from  any- 
body. As  to  ambition,  that  is,  no  doubt,  a  thing  to  be  carefully 
discouraged  in  oneself ;  but  it  does  not  necessarily  inhere  in  the 
barrister's  profession  more  than  in  many  others,  and  I  have 
known  one  or  two  who,  by  quiet  fidelity  in  promoting  justice, 
and  by  keeping  down  litigation,  had  acquired  the  epithet  of  the 
'honest  lawyer,'  which  appeared  to  me  altogether  human  and 
beautiful. 

Literature,  as  a  profession,  is  what  I  would  counsel  no  faith- 
ful man  to  be  concerned  with,  except  when  absolutely  forced 
into  it,  under  penalty,  as  it  were,  of  death.  The  pursuit  of  cul- 
ture, too,  is  in  the  highest  degree  recommendable  to  every 
human  soul,  and  may  be  successfully  achieved  in  almost  any 
honest  employment  that  has  wages  paid  for  it.  No  doubt,  too, 
the  church  seems  to  offer  facilities  in  this  respect ;  but  I  will  by 
no  means  advise  you  to  overcome  your  reluctance  against  seek- 
ing refuge  there.  On  the  whole  there  is  nothing  strikes  me 
likelier  for  one  of  your  disposition  than  the  profession  of  teacher, 
which  is  rising  into  higher  request  every  day,  and  has  scope  in 
it  for  the  grandest  endowments  of  human  faculties  (could  such 
hitherto  be  got  to  enter  it),  and  of  all  useful  and  fruitful  em- 
ployments may  be  defined  as  the  usefullest,  fruitfullest,  and 
also  indispensablest  in  these  days  of  ours. 

Eegretting  much  that  I  can  help  you  so  infinitely  little,  bid- 
ding you  take  pious  and  patient  counsel  with  your  own  soul,  and 
wishing  you  with  great  truth  a  happy  result, 

I  remain,  dear  Sir, 

Faithfully  yours, 

T.  Carlyle. 

Thus  calmly  and  usefully  Carlyle's  later  years  went  by. 
There  was  nothing  more  to  disturb  him.  His  health 
(though  he  would  seldom  allow  it)  was  good.     He  com- 


A  lick  Carlyle,  87S 

plained  of  little,  scarcely  of  want  of  sleep,  and  suffered  le« 
in  all  ways  than  when  his  temperament  was  more  impet- 
uously sensitive.  One  form  of  sorrow — inevitable  when 
life  is  far  prolonged,  that  of  seeing  those  whom  he  had 
known  and  loved  pass  away — this  he  could  not  escape.  In 
February,  1876,  John  Forster  died,  the  dearest  friend  that 
Jie  had  left.  I  was  with  him  at  Forster's  funeral  in  Kensal 
Green ;  and  a  month  later  at  the  funeral  of  Lady  Augusta 
Stanley  at  the  Abbey. 
In  April  his  brother  Alick  went,  far  off  in  Canada. 

April  22, 1876.— Poor  Alick  !  he  writes:  He  is  cut  away  from 
us,  and  we  shall  behold  his  face  no  more,  nor  think  of  him  as 
being  of  the  earth  any  more.  Tlie  much-struggling,  ever  true 
and  valiant  brother  is  for  ever  gone.  To  himself  in  the  state  he 
was  in,  it  can  be  considered  only  as  a  blessed  relief,  but  it  strikes 
me  heavily  that  he  is  gone  before  myself ;  that  I,  who  should  in 
the  course  of  nature  have  gone  before  him,  am  left  among  the 
mourners  instead  of  being  the  mourned. 

Young  Alick's  account  of  his  death  is  altogether  interesting — 
a  scene  of  sublime  simplicity,  great  and  solemn  under  the  hum- 
blest forms.  That  question  of  his,  when  his  eyes  were  already 
shut,  and  his  mind  wavering  before  the  last  finis  of  all : — 'Is 
Tom  coming  from  Edinburgh  the  mom  ? '  '  will  never  leave  me 
should  I  live  a  hundred  years.  Poor  AUck,  my  ever  faithful 
brother !  Come  back  across  wide  oceans  and  long  decades  of 
time  to  the  scenes  of  brotherly  companionship  with  me,  and 
going  out  of  the  world  as  it  were  with  his  hand  in  mine.  Many 
times  he  convoyed  me  to  meet  the  Dumfries  coach,  or  to  bring  nic 
home  from  it,  and  full  of  bright  and  perfect  affection  always 
were  those  meetings  and  partings. 

Though  he  felt  his  life  to  be  fast  ebbing,  he  still  watched 
the  course  of  things  outside  him.  He  had,  as  hae  been 
seen,  been  touched  by  Mr.  Disraeli's  action  towards  him, 

>  Alluding  to  the  old  times  when  Carlyle  was  at  thu  Unlveratty  and  UU 
brothor  would  be  looking  out  for  bini  at  vucatioo  Ume. 


376  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

but  it  had  not  altered  in  the  least  his  distrust  of  Disraeli's 
character ;  and  it  was  thus  with  indignation,  but  without 
surprise,  that  he  found  him  snatch  the  opportunity  of  the 
Kussian-Turkish  War  to  prepare  to  plaj  a  great  part  in 
European  pohtics.  It  was  the  curse  of  modern  English 
political  life,  as  Carlyle  saw  it,  that  Prime  Ministers 
thought  first  of  their  party,  and  only  of  the  well-being  of. 
their  country  as  wrapped  up  in  their  party's  triumph.  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  sacrificed  the  loyal  Protestants  in  Ireland  for 
the  Catholic  vote.  Disraeli  was  appealing  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Crimean  War,  the  most  foolish  enterprise  in  which 
England  had  ever  been  engaged,  to  stir  the  national  vanity 
and  set  the  world  on  fire,  that  he  and  his  friends  might  win 
a  momentary  popularity.  That  any  honour,  any  benefit  to 
England  or  to  mankind,  could  arise  from  tliis  adventure,  he 
could  neither  believe  himself  nor  do  Disraeli  so  much  in- 
justice as  to  suppose  that  he  believed  it.  Lord  Palmers  ton, 
a  chartered  libertine,  had  been  allowed  to  speak  of  the 
Turks  as  Hhe  bulwark  of  civilisation  against  barbarism.' 
There  was  no  proposition  too  absurd  for  the  unfortunate 
English  people  to  swallow.  Disraeli  was  following  on  the 
same  lines ;  while  the  few  decently  informed  people,  who 
knew  the  Turks,  knew  that  they  were  the  barbarians, 
decrepit,  and  incurable  ;  that  their  presence  in  Europe  was 
a  disgrace ;  that  they  had  been  like  a  stream  of  oil  of 
vitriol,  blasting  every  land  that  they  had  occupied.  And  . 
now  we  were  threatened  with  war  again,  a  war  which 
might  kindle  Europe  into  a  blaze;  in  defence  of  this 
wretched  nation.  The  levity  with  which  Parliament,  press, 
and  platform  were  lending  themselves  to  the  Premier's 
ambition,  was  but  an  illustration  of  what  Carlyle  had  always 
said  about  the  practical  v^lue  of  English  institutions ;  but 
he  was  disgusted  that  the  leaders  in  the  present  insanity 
should  be  those  from  whom  alone  resistance  could  be  hoped 


The  RtLssia/nr- Turkish   War  377 

for  against  the  incoming  of  democracy.  It  wius  something 
worse  than  even  their  Reform  Bill  ten  years  before.  He 
saw  that  it  could  lead  to  nothing  but  the  discredit,  perhaps 
the  final  ruin  of  tlie  Conservative  party,  and  tlie  return  of 
Mr.  Gladstone,  to  work  fresh  mischief  in  Ireland.  He  fore- 
saw all  that  has  happened  as  accurately  as  if  he  had  been  a 
mechanically  inspired  prophet ;  and  there  was  something  of 
the  old  fire  of  the  '  Latter-Day  Pamphlets '  in  the  tone  in 
which  he  talked  of  what  was  coming.  John  Carlyle  had 
spent  the  spring  of  1877  in  Cheyne  Row.  He  had  left  at 
the  end  of  April,  when  the  excitement  was  growing  hot. 
His  brother  writes,  April  28 : — 

Dismal  rumours  are  afloat,  that  Dizzy  secretly  intends  to 
break  in  upon  the  Russian-Turkish  War,  and  supporting  him- 
self by  his  Irish  Home  Rulers,  great  troop  of  commonplace  To- 
ries, Jews,  &c.,  suddenly  get  Parliament  to  support  him  in  a  new 
Philo-Turk  war  against  Russia— the  maddest  thing  human  im- 
agination could  well  conceive.  I  am  strongly  urged  to  write 
something  further  upon  it,  but  cannot  feel  that  I  have  anything 
new  to  say. 

Events  move  fast  in  these  days,  and  one  nail  drives  out 
another ;  but  we  all  remember  the  winter  campaign  which 
brought  the  Russians  to  Constantinople  and  the  English 
fleet  to  the  Dardanelles.  Opinion  in  England  was  all  but 
prepared  to  allow  the  Government  to  throw  itself  into  the 
fray — all  but — but  not  entirely.  If  initiative  could  1x3 
forced  upon  the  Russians,  those  who  wished  for  a  fresh 
struggle  could  have  it.  A  scheme  was  said  to  liave  been 
formed  either  to  seize  GtiUipoli  or  to  take  some  similar  step, 
under  pretence  of  protecting  English  interests,  which  would 
have  driven  Russia,  however  reluctant  she  might  be,  into  a 
declaration  of  war.  The  plan,  whatever  it  may  have  been, 
was  kept  a  secret ;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  prep- 
arations were  actually  made,  that  commanders  were  chosen. 


378  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

and  instructions  were  almost  on  their  way,  which  would 
Lave  committed  the  country  beyond  recall.  Carlyle  heard 
of  this,  not  as  he  said  from  idle  rumour,  but  from  some  au- 
thentic source ;  and  he  heard  too  that  there  was  not  a 
moment  to  lose.  On  the  6th  of  May  he  writes  to  his 
brother : — 

After  much  urgency  and  with  a  dead-lift  effort,  I  have  this 
day  got  issued  through  the  '  Times '  a  small  indispensable  de- 
liverance on  the  Turk  and  Dizzy  question.  Dizzy,  it  appears,  to 
the  horror  of  those  who  have  any  interest  in  him  and  his  pro- 
ceedings, has  decided  to  have  a  new  war  for  the  Turk  against  all 
mankind ;  and  this  letter  hopes  to  drive  a  nail  through  his  mad 
and  maddest  speculations  on  that  side. 

The  letter  to  the  '  Times '  was  brief,  not  more  than  three 
or  four  lines ;  but  it  was  emphatic  in  its  tone,  and  was  pos- 
itive about  the  correctness  of  the  information.  Whether  he 
was  right,  or  whether  some  one  had  misled  him,  there  is  no 
evidence  before  the  public  to  show.  But  the  secret,  if  secret 
there  was,  had  thus  been  disclosed  prematurely.  The  let- 
ter commanded  attention  as  coming  from  a  man  who  was 
unlikely  to  have  spoken  without  grounds,  and  any  unex- 
pected shock,  slight  though  it  may  be,  will  disturb  a  criti- 
cal operation.  This  was  Carlyle's  last  public  act  in  this 
world ;  and  if  he  contributed  ever  so  little  to  preventing 
England  from  committing  herself  to  a  policy  of  which  the 
mischief  would  have  been  immeasurable,  counterbalanced 
by  nothing,  save  a  brief  popularity  to  the  Tory  party,  it  was 
perhaps  also  the  most  useful  act  in  his  whole  life. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

A.D.  1877-81.    ^T.  82-85. 

Conversation  and  habits  of  life — Estimate  of  leading  politician! 
— ^Visit  from  Lord  Woiseley — Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Mr. 
Gladstone — Dislike  of  Jews — The  English  Liturgy — An 
afternoon  in  Westminster  Abbey — Progress — Democracy — 
Religion— The  Bible— Characteristics. 

My  tale  draws  to  an  end.  In  representing  Carlyle's  thoughts 
on  men  and  things,  I  have  confined  myself  as  much  as  pos- 
sible to  his  own  words  in  his  journals  and  letters.  To  re- 
port correctly  the  language  of  conversations,  especially 
when  extended  over  a  wide  period,  is  almost  an  impossi- 
bility. The  listener,  in  spite  of  himself,  adds  something 
of  his  own  in  colour,  form,  or  substance. 

I  knew  Carlyle,  however,  so  long  and  so  intimately,  that 
I  heard  many  things  from  him  which  are  not  to  be  found 
under  his  hand  ;  many  things  more  fully  dilated  on,  which 
are  there  only  hinted  at,  and  slight  incidents  about  himself 
for  which  I  could  make  no  place  in  my  narrative.  I  have 
already  noticed  the  general  character  of  his  talk  with  me. 
I  add  here  some  few  memorabilia,  taken  either  from  notes 
hastily  written  down,  or  from  my  own  recollection,  which 
I  believe  in  the  main  to  be  correct. 

When  the  shock  of  his  grief  had  worn  off,  and  he  had 
completed  his  expiatory  memoir,  he  became  more  com- 
posed,, and  could  discourse  with  his  old  fulness,  and  more 


380  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

calmly  than  in  earlier  times.  A  few  hours  alone  with  him 
furnished  then  the  most  delightful  entertainment.  We 
walked  ^nq  or  six  miles  a  day  in  Hyde  Park  or  Battersea, 
or  in  the  environs  of  Kensington.  As  his  strength  de- 
clined, we  used  the  help  of  an  omnibus,  and  extended  our 
excursions  farther.  In  his  last  years  he  drove  daily  in  a 
fly,  out  Harrow  way,  or  to  Richmond  or  Sydenham,  or 
wherever  it  might  be.  Occasionally,  in  the  warm  days  of 
early  summer,  he  would  go  with  me  to  Kew  Gardens  to 
see  the  flowers  or  hear  the  cuckoo  and  the  nightingales. 
He  was  impervious  to  weather — never  carried  an  umbrella, 
but,  with  a  mackintosh  and  his  broad-brimmed  hat,  let  the 
rain  do  its  worst  upon  him.  The  driving  days  were,  the 
least  interesting  to  me,  for  his  voice  grew  weak,  and  my 
own  hearing  being  imperfect,  I  lost  much  of  what  he  said  ; 
but  we  often  got  out  to  walk,  and  then  he  was  as  audible 
as  ever. 

He  was  extremely  sensitive,  and  would  become  uneasy 
and  even  violent — often  without  explaining  himself — for 
the  most  unexpected  reasons.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
he  had  once  stayed  at  Malvern  with  Dr.  Grully,  and  on  the 
whole  had  liked  Grully,  or  had  at  least  been  grateful  to 
him.  Many  years  after.  Dr.  Gully's  name  had  come  be- 
fore the  world  again,  in  connection  with  the  Balham  mys- 
tery, and  Carlyle  had  been  shocked  and  distressed  about  it. 
We  had  been  out  at  Sydenham.  He  wished  to  be  at  home 
at  a  particular  hour.  The  time  was  short,  and  I  told  the 
coachman  to  go  back  quickly  the  nearest  way.  He  became 
suddenly  agitated,  insisted  that  the  man  was  going  T\Tong, 
and  at  last  peremptorily  ordered  him  to  take  another  road. 
I  said  that  it  would  be  a  long  round,  and  that  we  should  be 
late,  but  to  no  purpose,  and  we  gave  him  his  way.  By-and- 
by,  when  he  grew  cool,  he  said,  ^We  should  have  gone 
through  Balham.     I  cannot  bear  to  pass  that  house.' , 


Sensitiveneas,  881 

In  an  omnibus  his  arbitrary  ways  were  very  amusing. 
He  always  craved  for  fresh  air,  took  his  seat  by  the  door 
when  he  could  get  it,  and  sat  obliquely  in  the  comer  to 
avoid  being  squeezed.  The  conductors  knew  him,  and  his 
appearance  was  so  marked  that  the  passengers  generally 
knew  him  also,  and  treated  him  with  high  respect.  A 
stranger  on  the  box  one  day,  seeing  Carlyle  get  in,  observed 
that  the  *  old  fellow  'ad  a  queer  'at.'  *  Queer  'at ! '  answered 
the  driver ;  '  ay,  he  may  wear  a  queer  'at,  but  wliat  would 
you  give  for  the  'ed-piece  that's  a  inside  of  it  ? ' 

He  went  often  by  omnibus  to  the  Regent  Circus,  walked 
from  thence  up  Regent  Street  and  Portland  Place  into  the 
Park,  and  returned  the  same  way.  Portland  Place,  being 
airy  and  uncrowded,  pleased  him  particularly.  We  were 
strolling  along  it  during  the  Russo-Turkish  crisis,  one  after- 
noon, when  we  met  a  Foreign  Office  official,  who  was  in 
the  Cabinet  secrets.  Knowing  me,  he  turned  to  walk  with 
us,  and  I  introduced  him  to  Carlyle,  saying  who  he  was. 
C.  took  the  opportunity  of  delivering  himself  in  the  old 
eruptive  style ;  the  Geyser  throwing  up  whole  volumes  of 
steam  and  stones.  It  was  very  fine,  and  was  the  last  occa- 
sion on  which  I  ever  heard  him  break  out  in  this  way.  Mr. 
wrote  to  me  afterwards  to  tell  me  how  much  inter- 
ested he  had  been,  adding,  however,  that  he  was  still  in  the 
dark  as  to  whether  it  was  his  eyes  or  the  Turk's  that  had 
been  damned  at  such  a  rate.  I  suppose  I  might  have  an- 
swered, both. 

He  spoke  much  on  politics  and  on  the  characters  of  pub- 
lic men.  From  the  British  Parliament  he  was  profoundly* 
convinced  that  no  more  good  was  to  be  looked  for.  A 
democratic  Parliament,  from  the  nature  of  it,  would  place 
persons  at  the  head  of  affairs  increasingly  unfit  to  deal  witli 
them.  Bad  would  be  followed  by  worse,  and  worse  by 
worst,  till  the  very  fools  would  see  that  the  system  must 


382  Carlyle^s  L'lfe  in  Lmidon. 

end.  Lord  Wolseley,  then  Sir  Garnet,  went  with  me  once 
to  call  in  Cheyne  Eow,  Carlyle  having  expressed  a  wish  to 
see  him.  He  was  much  struck  with  Sir  Garnet,  and  talked 
freely  with  him  on  many  subjects.  He  described  the  House 
of  Commons  as  '  six  hundred  talking  asses,  set  to  make  the 
laws  and  administer  the  concerns  of  the  greatest  empire  the 
world  had  ever  seen ; '  with  other  uncomplimentary  phrases. 
"When  we  rose  to  go,  he  said,  *  Well,  Sir,  I  am  glad  to  have 
made  your  acquaintance,  and  I  wish  you  well.  There  is  one 
duty  which  I  hope  may  yet  be  laid  upon  you  before  you 
leave  this  world — ^to  lock  the  door  of  yonder  place,  and  turn 
them  all  out  about  their  business.' 

Of  the  two  Parliamentary  chiefs  then  alternately  rul- 
ing, I  have  already  said  that  he  preferred  Mr.  Disraeli, 
and  continued  to  prefer  him,  even  after  his  wild  effort  to 
make  himself  arbiter  of  Europe.  Disraeli,  he  thought,  was 
under  no  illusions  about  himself.  To  him  the  world  was  a 
mere  stage,  and  he  a  mere  actor  playing  a  part  upon  it. 
He  had  no  serious  beliefs,  and  made  no  pretences.  He  un- 
derstood, as  well  as  Carlyle  himself,  whither  England  was 
going,  with  its  fine  talk  of  progress ;  but  it  would  last  his 
time ;  he  could  make  a  figure  in  conducting  its  destinies,  or 
at  least  amuse  himself  scientifically  like  Mephistopheles. 
He  was  not  an  Englishman,  and  had  no  true  care  for  Eng- 
land. The  Conservatives,  in  choosing  him  for  their  lead- 
er, had  sealed  their  own  fate.  He  had  made  his  fame  by 
assailing  Peel,  the  last  of  the  great  order  of  English  minis- 
ters. He  was  dexterous  in  Parliamentary  manoeuvres,  but 
looked  only  to  winning  in  divisions,  and  securing  his  party 
their  turn  of  power.  If  with  his  talents  he  had  possessed 
the  instincts  of  a  statesman,  there  was  anarchic  Ireland  to 
be  brought  to  order ;  there  were  the  Colonies  to  be  united 
with  the  Empire  ;  there  was  the  huge,  hungry,  half -human 
population  of  our  enormous  towns  to  be  drafted  out  over  the 


The  Political  Leaders,  383 

infinite  territories  of  Canada,  Australia,  and  New  Zealand, 
where,  with  land  to  cultivate  and  pure  air  to  breathe,  they 
might  recover  sanity  of  soul  and  limb. 

He  used  to  speak  with  real  anger  of  the  argument  that 
such  poor  wretches  were  wanted  at  home  in  tlieir  squalid 
alleys,  that  labour  might  continue  cheap.  It  was  an  argu- 
ment worthy  only  of  Carib  cannibals.  This  was  the  work 
cut  out  for  English  Conservatives,  and  they  were  shutting 
their  eyes  to  it  because  it  was  diflScult,  and  were  rushing 
off,  led  by  Dizzy,  into  Russian  wars. 

Mr.  Disraeli,  however,  had,  he  admitted,  some  good 
qualities.  He  could  fjee  facts,  a  supreme  merit  in  Carlyle's 
eyes.  He  was  good-natured.  He  bore  no  malice.  If  he 
was  without  any  lofty  virtues,  he  affected  no  virtuous  airs. 
Mr.  Gladstone,  Carlyle  considered  to  be  equally  incapable 
of  high  or  sincere  purpose,  but  with  this  difference,  that  he 
supposed  himself  to  have  what  he  had  not.  He  did  not 
look  on  Mr.  Gladstone  merely  as  an  orator,  who,  knowing 
nothing  as  it  ought  to  be  known,  had  flung  his  force  into 
words  and  specious  sentiments ;  but  as  the  representative 
of  the  multitudinous  cants  of  the  age — religious,  moral,  po- 
litical, litei-ary ;  differing  in  this  point  from  other  leading 
men,  that  the  cant  seemed  actually  true  to  him ;  that  he 
believed  it  all  and  was  prepared  to  act  on  it.  He,  in  fact, 
believed  Mr.  Gladstone  to  be  one  of  those  fatal  figures, 
created  by  England's  evil  genius,  to  work  irreparable  mis- 
cliief,  which  no  one  but  he  could  have  executed. 

This,  in  sum,  was  the  opinion  which  he  expressed  to  me 
a  hundred  times,  witli  a  hundred  variations,  and  in  this 
imperfect  form  I  have  here  set  it  down.  In  a  few  years, 
the  seed  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  sown  in  Ireland  and 
elsewhere  will  have  ripened  to  the  hai'vest.  '  All  political 
follies,'  Carlyle  says  somewhere,  *  issue  at  last  in  a  broken 
head  to  somebody.     That  is  the  final  outcome  of  them.' 


384  Ca/rlyWs  Life  in  London. 

The  next  generation  will  see  whether  we  are  to  have  broken 
heads  in  Ireland,  or  peace  and  prosperity. 

His  dislike  for  Disraeli  was  perhaps  aggravated  by  his  dis- 
like of  Jews.  He  had  a  true  Teutonic  aversion  for  that  unfor- 
tunate race.  They  had  no  humour,  for  one  thing,  and  showed 
no  trace  of  it  at  any  period  of  their  history — a  fatal  defect  in 
Carlyle's  eyes,  who  regarded  no  man  or  people  as  good  for 
anything  who  were  without  a  '  genial  sympathy  with  the 
under  side.'  They  had  contributed  nothing,  besides,  to  the 
'  wealth '  of  mankind,  being  mere  dealers  in  money,  gold, 
jewels,  or  else  old  clothes,  material  and  spiritual.  He  stood 
still  one  day,  opposite  Rothschild's  great  house  at  Hyde 
Park  Corner,  looked  at  it  a  little,  and  said,  '  I  do  not  mean 
that  I  want  King  John  back  again,  but  if  you  ask  me  which 
mode  of  treating  these  people  to  have  been  the  nearest  to 
the  will  of  the  Almighty  about  them — to  build  them  palaces 
like  that,  or  to  take  the  pincers  for  them,  I  declare  for  the 
pincers.'  Then  he  imagined  himself  King  John,  with  the 
Baron  on  the  bench  before  him.  '  Now,  sir,  the  State  requires 
some  of  those  millions  you  have  heaped  together  with  your 
financing  work.  "  You  won't  1 "  very  well,'  and  he  gave  a 
twist  with  his  wrist — '  ISTow  will  you  ? '  and  then  another 
twist,  till  the  millions  were  yielded.  I  would  add,  how- 
ever, that  the  Jews  were  not  the  only  victims  whose  grind- 
ers he  believed  democracy  would  make  free  with. 

London  housebuilding  was  a  favourite  text  for  a  sermon 
from  him.  He  would  point  to  rows  of  houses  so  slightly 
put  together  that  they  stood  only  by  the  support  they  gave 
to  one  another,  intended  only  to  last  out  a  brief  lease,  with 
no  purpose  of  continuance,  either  to  themselves  or  their 
owners.  '  Human  life,'  he  said,  was  not  possible  in  such 
houses.  All  real  worth  in  man  came  of  stability.  Char- 
acter grew  from  roots  hke  a  tree.  In  healthy  times  the 
family  home  was  constructed  to  last  for  ages ;  sons  to  fol- 


The  Church  of  England.  :M) 

low  tlieir  fathers,  working  at  the  Hiime  husiness,  with  es- 
tablislied  inetliods  of  thought  and  action.  Modern  honses 
were  symbols  of  the  universal  appetite  for  change.  They 
were  not  houses  at  all.  They  were  tents  of  nomads.  The 
modern  artisan  had  no  home^  and  did  not  know  what  home 
meant.  Everything  was  now  a  makeshift.  Men  lived  for 
the  present.  They  had  no  future  to  look  forward  to,  for 
none  could  say  what  the  future  was  to  be.  The  London 
streets  and  squares  were  an  unconscious  confession  of  it 

For  the  same  reason  he  respected  such  old  institutions  as 
were  still  standing  among  us — not  excepting  even  the 
Church  of  England.  He  called  it  the  most  respectable 
teaching  body  at  present  in  existence ;  and  he  thought  it 
might  stand  for  a  while  yet  if  its  friends  would  let  it  alone. 
*  Your  rusty  kettle/  he  said,  ^will  continue  to  boil  your 
water  for  you  if  you  don't  try  to  mend  it.  Begin  tinkering, 
and  there  is  an  end  of.  your  kettle.'  It  could  not  last  for 
ever,  for  what  it  had  to  say  was  not  wholly  true.  Puritan- 
ism was  a  noble  thing  while  it  was  sincere,  but  that  was 
not  true  either.  All  doctrines  had  to  go,  after  the  truth 
of  tliem  came  to  be  suspected.  But  as  long  as  men  could 
be  found  to  work  the  Church  of  England  who  believed  the 
Prayer-book  sincerely,  he  had  not  the  least  wish  to  see  the 
fall  of  it  precipitated.  He  disliked  the  liberal  school  of 
clergy.  Let  it  once  be  supposed  that  the  clergy  generally 
were  teaching  what  they  did  not  believe  themselves,  and 
the  whole  thing  would  become  a  hideous  hyp)Ocrisy. 

He  himself  had  for  many  years  attended  no  place  of  wor- 
ship. Nowhere  could  he  hear  anything  which  he  regarded 
as  tnie,  and  to  be  insincere  in  word  or  act  was  not  possible 
to  liiiii.  But  liturgies  and  such-like  had  a  mouniful  inter- 
est for  him,  as  fossils  of  belief  which  once  had  been 
genuine.  A  lady — Lady  Ashburton,  I  think — induced 
hJTTi  once,  late  in  his  life,  to  go  with  her  to  St.  Paul's.    He 


386  CarlyJe's  Life  in  Lmidon. 

liad  never  before  heard  the  Eiighsh  Cathedral  Service,  and 
far  away  in  the  nave,  in  the  dim  light,  where  the  words 
Avere  indistinct,  or  were  disguised  in  music,  he  had  been 
more  impressed  than  he  expected  to  be.  In  the  prayers  he 
recognised  '  a  true  piety '  which  had  once  come  straight  out 
of  the  heart.  The  distant  '  Amen '  of  the  choristers  and 
the  roll  of  the  great  organ  brought  tears  into  his  eyes. 
He  spoke  so  feelingly  of  this,  that  I  tempted  him  to  try  again 
at  Westminster  Abbey.  I  told  him  that  Dean  Stanley,  for 
whom  he  had  a  strong  regard,  would  preach,  and  this  was 
perhaps  another  inducement.  The  experiment  proved  dan- 
gerous. We  were  in  the  Dean's  seat.  A  minor  canon  was 
intoning  close  to  Carlyle's  ear.  The  chorister  boys  were 
but  three  yards  off,  and  the  charm  of  distance  was  ex- 
changed for  contact  which  was  less  enchanting.  The  hues 
of  worshippers  in  front  of  him,  sitting  while  pretending  to 
kneel,  making  their  responses,  bowing  in  the  creed  by 
habit,  and  mechanically  repeating  the  phrases  of  it,  when 
their  faces  showed  that  it  was  habit  only,  without  genuine 
conviction  ;  this  and  the  rest  brought  back  the  feeling  that 
it  was  but  play-acting  after,  all.  I  could  see  the  cloud 
gathering  in  his  features,  and  I  was  alarmed  for  what  I  had 
done  before  the  service  was  half  over.  Worst  of  all, 
through  some  mistake,  the  Dean  did  not  preach,  and  in  the 
place  of  him  was  a  popular  orator,  who  gave  us  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  of  sugary  eloquence.  For  a  while 
Carlyle  bore  it  like  a  hero.  But  by-and-by  I  heard  the 
point  of  his  stick  rattle  audibly  on  the  floor.  He  crushed 
his  hat  angrily  at  each  specially  emphatic  period,  and 
groans  followed,  so  loud  that  some  of  the  congregation 
sitting  near,  who  appeared  to  know  him,  began  to  look 

round.     Mrs.  D ,  the  Dean's  cousin,  who  was  in  the 

seat  with  us,  exchanged  frightened  glances  with  me.  ] 
was  the  most  uneasy  of  all,  for  I  could  see  into  his  mind  ; 


Wearifie^is  of  Life,  387 

aDd  at  the  t(x>  florid  peronitiou  I  feared  that  he  would  rwe 
and  insist  on  going  out,  or  even,  like  Oliver,  exclaim, 
'  Leave  your  fooling,  sir,  and  come  down  I '  Happily  the 
end  arrived  before  a  crisis,  and  we  escaped  a  catastrophe 
which  would  have  set  London  ringing. 

The  loss  of  the  use  of  his  right  hand  was  more  than  a 
common  misfortune.  It  was  the  loss  of  everytliing.  The 
powers  of  writing,  even  with  pencil,  went  finally  seven 
years  before  his  death.  His  mind  was  vigorous  and  restless 
as  ever.  Keading  without  an  object  was  weariness.  Idle- 
ness was  misery ;  and  I  never  knew  him  so  depressed  as 
when  the  fatal  certainty  was  brought  home  to  him.  To 
this,  as  to  other  immediate  things,  time  partly  reconciled 
him ;  but  at  first  he  found  life  intolerable  under  such 
conditions.  Every  day  he  told'  me  he  was  weary  of  it,  and 
spoke  wistfully  of  the  old  Roman  method.  *  A  man  must 
stick  to  his  post,'  he  said,  *  and  do  his  best  there  as  long  as 
he  can  work.  When  his  tools  are  taken  from  him,  it  is  a 
sign  that  he  may  retire.'  When  a  dear  friend  who,  like 
himself,  had  lost  his  wife  and  was  heart-broken,  took  leave 
in  Roman  fashion,  he  was  emphatic  in  his  approval.  In- 
creasing weakness  only  partially  tamed  him  into  patience, 
or  reconciled  him  to  an  existence  which,  even  at  its  best,  he 
had  more  despised  than  valued. 

To  Carlyle,  as  to  Hamlet,  the  modem  world  was  but  *  a 
pestilent  congregation  of  vapours.'  Often  and  often  I  have 
lieai-d  him  repeat  Macbeth's  words : — 

To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow. 

Creeps  on  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day 

To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time  : 

And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 

The  way  to  dusky  death.     Out,  out,  brief  candle  I 

Life's  but  a  walking  shadow  ;  a  poor  player 

That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage. 


388  Carlyle^s  L{fe  in  London. 

And  then  is  heard  no  more.  It  fe  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing. 

He  was  especially  irritated  when  he  heard  the  ordinary 
cant  about  progress,  unexampled  prosperity,  &c.  Progress 
whither  ?  he  would  ask,  and  prosperity  in  what  ?  People 
talked  as  if  each  step  which  they  took  was  in  the  nature 
of  things  a  step  upward  ;  as  if  each  generation  was  neces- 
sarily wiser  and  better  than  the  one  before ;  as  if  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  progressing  down  to  hell ;  as  if  human  his- 
tory was  anything  else  but  a  history  of  birth  and  death, 
advance  and  decline,  of  rise  and  fall,  in  all  that  men  have 
ever  made  or  done.  The  only  progress  to  which  Carlyle 
"would  allow  the  name  was  moral  progress ;  the  only  pros- 
perity the  growth  of  better  and  nobler  men  and  women : 
and  as  humanity  could  only  expand  into  high  dimensionb 
in  an  organic  society  when  the  wise  ruled  and  the  ignorant 
obeyed,  the  progress  which  consisted  in  destroying  au- 
thority, and  leaving  everyone  to  follow  his  own  will  and 
pleasure,  was  progress  down  to  the  devil  and  his  angels. 
That,  in  his  opinion,  was  the  evident  goal  of  the  course  in 
which  we  were  all  hurrying  on  in  such  high  spirits.  Of 
the  theory  of  equality  of  voting,  the  good  and  the  bad  on 
the  same  level,  Judas  Iscariot  and  Paul  of  Tarsus  count- 
ing equal  at  the  polling  booth,  the  annals  of  human  in- 
fatuation, he  used  to  say,  did  not  contain  the  equal. 

Sometimes  he  thought  that  we  were  given  over  and  lost 
without  remedy;  that  we  should  rot  away  through  in- 
glorious centuries,  sinking  ever  deeper  into  anarchy,  pro- 
tected by  our  strip  of  sea  from  a  violent  end  till  the  earth 
was  weary  of  us.  At  other  times  the  inherent  manliness 
of  the  English  race,  inherited  from  nobler  ages,  and  not 
yet  rinsed  out  of  them,  gave  him  hopes  that  we  might  yet 
be  delivered. 


Tha  StUe.  3» 

I  reminded  him  of  the  comment  of  Dion  ObmIiis  on  the 
change  in  Rome  from  a  commonwealth  to  an  empire.  In  a 
democracy,  Cassius  says,  a  country  cannot  be  well  admin- 
istered, even  by  accident,  for  it  is  ruled  by  the  majority, 
and  the  majority  are  always  fools.  An  emperor  is  but  a 
single  man,  and  may,  if  the  gods  please,  be  a  wise  one. 
But  tliis  did  not  please  Carlyle  either.  The  emj^erors  that 
Rome  got,  and  that  we  should  be  likely  to  get,  were  of  the 
Copper  Captain  type,  and  worse  than  democracy  itself. 
The  hope,  if  there  was  hope,  lay  in  a  change  of  heart  in 
the  English  people,  and  the  reawakening  of  the  nobler  ele- 
ment in  them ;  and  this  meant  a  recovered  sense  of '  religion.' 
They  would  rise  out  of  their  delusions  when  they  recognised 
once  more  the  sacred  meaning  of  dvty.  Yet  whcU  rdigicm  f 
He  did  not  think  it  possible  that  educated  honest  men  could 
even  profess  much  longer  to  believe  in  historical  Christian- 
ity. He  had  been  reading  the  Bible.  Half  of  it  seemed 
to  be  inspired  truth,  half  of  it  human  illusion.  *The 
prophet  says,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  Yes,  sir,  but  how  if 
it  be  not  the  Lord,  but  only  you  who  take  your  own  fancies 
for  the  word  of  the  Lord.'  I  spoke  to  him  of  what  he  had 
done  himself.  Then  as  always  he  thought  little  of  it,  but 
he  said,  *  They  must  come  to  something  like  that  if  any 
more  good  is  to  grow  out  of  them.'  Scientific  accountings 
for  the  moral  sense  were  all  moonshine.  Right  and  wrong 
in  all  things,  great  and  small,  had  been  ruled  eternally  by 
the  Power  which  made  us.  A  friend  was  arguing  on  the 
people's  right  to  decide  this  or  that,  and,  when  Carlyle  dis- 
sented, asked  who  was  to  be  the  judge.  Carlyle  tiercely 
answered,  '  Hell  fire  will  be  the  judge.  Grod  Almighty  will 
be  the  judge,  now  and  always.' 

The  history  of  mankind  is  the  history  of  creeds  growing 
one  out  of  the  other.  I  said  it  was  possible  that  if  Protest- 
ant Christianity  ceased  to  be  credible,  some  fresh  snpersti- 


390  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

tion  miglit  take  its  place,  or  even  that  Popery  might  come 
back  for  a  time,  developed  into  new  conditions.  If  the 
Olympian  gods  could  survive  Aristophanes  800  years ;  if  a 
Julian  could  still  hope  to  maintain  Paganism  as  the  religion 
of  the  empire,  I  did  not  see  why  the  Pope  might  not  sur- 
vive Luther  for  at  least  as  long.  Carlyle  would  not  hear  of 
this ;  but  he  did  admit  that  the  Mass  was  the  most  genuine 
relic  of  religious  belief  now  left  to  us.  He  was  not  always 
consistent  in  what  he  said  of  Christianity.  He  would  often 
speak  of  it  with  Goethe  '  as  a  height  from  which,  when 
once  achieved,  mankind  could  never  descend.'  He  did  not 
himself  beheve  in  the  Resurrection  as  a  historical  fact,  yet 
he  was  angry  and  scornful  at  Strauss's  language  about  it. 
'  Did  not  our  hearts  burn  within  us  ? '  he  quoted,  insisting 
on  the  honest  conviction  of  the  apostles. 

The  associations  of  the  old  creed  which  he  had  learnt 
from  his  mother  and  in  the  Ecclefechan  kirk  hung  about 
him  to  the  last.  I  was  walking  with  him  one  Sunday  after- 
noon in  Battersea  Park.  In  the  open  circle  among  the  trees 
was  a  blind  man  and  his  daughter,  she  singing  hymns,  he 
accompanying  her  on  some  instrument.  We  stood  listen- 
ing. She  sang  Faber's  '  Pilgrims  of  the  Mght.'  The  words 
were  trivial,  but  the  air,  though  simple,  had  something 
weird  and  unearthly  about  it.  '  Take  me  away  ! '  he  said 
after  a  few  minutes,  '  I  shall  cry  if  I  stay  longer.' 

He  was  not  what  is  commonly  called  an  amiable  man. 
Amiability  runs  readily  into  insincerity.  He  spoke  his 
mind  freely,  careless  to  whom  he  gave  offence :  but  as  no 
man  ever  delighted  more  to  hear  of  any  brave  or  good 
action,  so  there  was  none  more  tender-hearted  or  compas- 
sionate of  suffering.  Stern  and  disdainful  to  wrongdoers, 
especially  if  they  happened  to  be  in  high  places,  he  was 
ever  pitiful  to  the  children  of  misfortune.  Whether  they 
wxre  saints  or  sinners  made  no  difference.     If  they  were 


Characteristics.  891 

miserable  his  heart  was  open  to  them.  He  was  like  Goethe's 
elves : — 

Wenn  er  heilig,  wenn  er  bOee, 

Jammert  sie  der  UnglQcksinann. 

His  memory  was  extremely  tenacious,  as  is  always  the  case 
with  men  of  genius.  He  would  relate  anecdotes  for  hours 
together  of  Scotch  peasant  life,  of  old  Edinburgh  students, 
old  Ecclefechan  villages,  wandering  from  one  thing  to 
another,  but  always  dwelling  on  the  simple  and  pious  side 
of  things,  never  on  the  scandalous  or  wicked.  Burns's  songs 
were  constantly  on  his  lips.  He  knew  them  so  well  that 
they  seemed  part  of  his  soul.  Kever  can  I  forget  the  tone 
in  which  he  would  repeat  to  me,  revealing  unconsciously 
where  his  own  thoughts  were  wandering,  the  beautiful  lines: — 

J.  t^ «.  ^ ,  Had  we  never  loved  sae  kindly. 

Had  we  never  loved  sae  blindly, 
Never  met  and  never  parted, 
We  had  ne'er  been  broken-hearted. 

Not  once  but  many  times  the  words  would  burst  from  him, 
rather  as  the  overflow  from  his  own  heart  than  as  addressed 
to  me. 

In  his  last  years  he  grew  weak,  glad  to  rest  upon  a  seat 
when  he  could  find  one,  glad  of  an  arm  to  lean  on  when  on 
his  feet.  He  knew  that  his  end  must  be  near,  and  it  was 
Rcldom  long  out  of  his  mind.  But  he  was  not  conscious  of 
a  failure  of  intellectual  power,  nor  do  I  think  that  to  the 
last  there  was  any  essential  failure.  He  forgot  names  and 
places,  as  old  men  always  do,  but  he  recollected  everything 
that  was  worth  remembering.  He  caught  the  point  of 
every  new  problem  with  the  old  rapidity.  He  was  eager  as 
<  ver  for  new  information.  In  his  intellect  nothing  pointed 
t. »  an  end ;  and  the  ex}>erience  that  tlie  mind  did  not  neces- 
parily  decay  with  the  body  confirmed  his  conviction  that  it 


392  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

was  not  a  function  of  the  body,  that  it  had  another  origin 
and  might  have  another  destination.  When  he  spoke  of 
the  future  and  its  uncertainties  he  fell  back  invariably  on 
the  last  words  of  his  favourite  hymn : — 

Wir  heissen  euch  hoffen. 
(We  bid  you  to  hope.) 

Meanwhile  his  business  with  the  world  was  over,  his  con- 
nection with  it  was  closing  in,  and  he  had  only  to  bid  it 

Farewell. 

Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun, 

Nor  the  stormy  winter  rages  ; 
Now  the  long  day's  task  is  done, 

Home  art  gone  and  ta'en  thy  wages. 
Golden  lads  and  lasses  must. 
Like  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust. 

Often  these  words  were  on  his  lips.  Home^  too,  he  felt 
that  he  was  going ;  home  to  those  '  dear '  ones  who  had 
gone  before  him.  His  wages  he  has  not  taken  with  him. 
His  wages  will  be  the  love  and  honour  of  the  whole  Eng- 
lish race  who  read  his  books  and  know  his  history.  If  his 
writings  are  forgotten,  he  has  left  in  his  life  a  model  of 
simplicity  and  uprightness  which  few  will  ever  equal  and 
none  will  excel.  For  he  had  not  been  sustained  in  his  way 
through  this  world  by  an  inherited  creed  which  could  give 
him  hope  and  confidence.  The  inherited  creed  had  crum- 
bled down,  and  he  had  to  form  a  belief  for  himself  by 
lonely  meditation.  ^N^ature  had  not  bestow^ed  on  him  the 
robust  mental  constitution  which  passes  by  the  petty  trials 
of  life  without  heeding  them,  or  the  stubborn  stoicism 
which  endures  in  silence,  l^ature  had  made  him  weak, 
passionate,  complaining,  dyspeptic  in  body  and  sensitive  in 
spirit,  lonely,  irritable,  and  morbid.  He  became  what  he 
was  by  his  moral  rectitude  of  principle,  by  a  conscientious 
resolution  to  do  right,  which  never  failed  him  in  serious 


Moral  Structure,  808 

things  from  his  earliest  years,  and,  though  it  could  not 
change  his  temperament,  was  the  inflexible  guide  of  his  con- 
duct. Neither  self-indulgence,  nor  ambition,  nor  any 
meaner  motive,  ever  led  liim  astray  from  the  straight  road 
of  duty,  and  he  left  the  world  at  last,  having  never  spoken, 
never  written  a  sentence  which  he  did  not  believe  with  his 
whole  heart,  never  stained  his  conscience  by  a  single  deHb- 
erate  act  which  he  could  regret  to  remember. 


CHAPTEK  XXXY. 

A.D.  1877-81.     MT.  82-85. 

Statues — ^Portraits — Millais's  picture — Study  of  the  Bible — Ill- 
ness and  death  of  John  Carlyle — Preparation  of  Memoirs — 
Last  words  about  it — Longing  for  death — The  end — Offer  of 
a  tomb  in  Westminster  Abbey — Why  declined — Ecclef  echau 
churchyard — Conclusion. 

A  BRIEF  chapter  closes  my  long  story.  All  things  and  all 
men  come  to  their  end.  This  biography  ends.  The  bi- 
ographer himself  will  soon  end,  and  will  go  where  he  will 
have  to  answer  for  the  manner  in  which  he  has  discharged 
his  trust,  happy  so  far  that  he  has  been  allowed  to  live  to 
complete  an  arduous  and  anxious  undertaking.  In  the 
summer  of  187Y  Carlyle,  at  my  urgent  entreaty,  sat  for  his 
picture  to  Mr.  Millais.  Mr.  Boehm  had  made  a  seated 
statue  of  him,  as  satisfactory  a  likeness  in  face  and  figure 
as  could  be  rendered  in  sculpture ;  and  the  warm  regard 
which  had  grown  up  between  the  artist  and  himself  had 
enabled  Mr.  Boehm  to  catch  with  more  than  common  suc- 
cess the  shifting  changes  of  his  expression.  But  there  was 
still  something  wanting.  A  portrait  of  Carlyle  completely 
satisfactory  did  not  yet  exist,  and  if  executed  at  aU  could  be 
executed  only  by  the  most  accomplished  painter  of  his  age. 
Millais,  I  believe,  had  never  attempted  a  more  difficult  sub- 
ject. In  the  second  sitting  I  observed  what  seemed  a  miracle. 
The  passionate  vehement  face  of  middle  life  had  long  dis- 


MiUMs  P(yiHrait.  396 

appeared.  Something  of  the  Annandale  peasant  had  Stolen 
back  over  the  proud  air  of  conscious  intellectual  power.  The 
scorn,  the  fierceness  was  gone,  and  tenderness  and  mild  sor- 
row had  passed  into  its  place.  And  yet  under  Millais's  hands 
the  old  Carlyle  stood  again  upon  the  canvas  as  I  had  not 
seen  him  for  thirty  years.  The  inner  secret  of  the  features 
had  been  evidently  caught.  There  was  a  likeness  which  no 
sculptor,  no  photographer,  had  yet  equalled  or  apjjroached. 
Afterwards,  I  knew  not  how,  it  seemed  to  fade  away.  Mil- 
lais  grew  dissatisfied  with  his  work,  and,  I  beUeve,  never 
completed  it.  Carlyle's  own  verdict  was  modestly  uncer- 
tain. 

The  picture,  he  said,  does  not  please  many,  nor  in  fact  myself 
altogether;  but  it  is  surely  strikingly  like  in  every  featiire,  and 
the  fundamental  condition  was  that  Millais  should  paint  what 
he  was  able  to  see. 

His  correspondence  with  his  brother  John,  never  inter- 
mitted while  they  both  lived,  was  concerned  chiefly  with 
the  books  with  which  he  was  occupying  himself.  He  read 
Shakespeare  again.  He  read  Goethe  again,  and  then  went 
completely  through  the  *  Decline  and  Fall.' 

I  have  finished  Gibbon,  he  wrote,  with  a  great  deduction  from 
the  high  esteem  I  have  had  of  him  ever  since  the  old  Kirkcaldy 
days,  when  I  first  read  the  twelve  volumes  of  poor  Irving's  copy 
in  twelve  consecutive  days.  A  man  of  endless  reading  and  re- 
search, but  of  a  most  disagreeable  style,  and  a  great  want  of  the 
highest  faculties  (which  indeed  are  very  rare)  of  what  we  could 
call  a  classical  historian,  compared  with  Herodotus,  for  instance, 
and  his  perfect  clearness  and  simplicity  in  every  part. 

In  speaking  of  Gibbon's  work  to  me  he  made  one  re- 
mark which  is  worth  recording.  In  earlier  years  he  had 
spoken  contemptuously  of  the  Athanasian  controversy,  of 
the  OhriBtian  world  torn  in  pieces  over  a  diphthong,  and 


396  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

he  would  ring  the  changes  in  broad  Annandale  on  the 
Homoousion  and  the  Hom(?^ousion.  He  told  me  now  that 
he  perceived  Christianity  itself  to  have  been  at  stake.  If 
the  Arians  had  won,  it  would  have  dwindled  away  into  a 
legend. 

He  continued  to  read  the  Bible,  Hhe  significance  of 
wliich,'  he  found,  '  deep  and  wonderful  almost  as  much  as 
it  ever  used  to  be.'  Bold  and  honest  to  the  last,  he  would 
not  pretend  to  believe  what  his  intellect  rejected,  and  even 
in  Job,  his  old  favourite,  he  found  more  wonder  than  satis- 
faction. But  the  Bible  itself,  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare, 
remained  ^  the  best  books '  to  him  that  were  ever  written. 

He  was  growing  weaker  and  weaker,  however,  and  the 
exertion  of  thought  exhausted  him. 

I  do  not  feel  to  ail  anything,  he  said  of  himself,  INbvember  2, 
1878,  except  unspeakable  and,  I  think,  increasing"  weakness,  as 
of  a  young  child — the  arrival,  in  fact,  of  second  childhood,  such 
as  is  to  be  expected  when  the  date  of  departure  is  nigh.  I  am 
grateful  to  Heaven  for  one  thing,  that  the  state  of  my  mind 
continues  unaltered  and  perfectly  clear ;  surely  a  blessing  be- 
yond expression  compared  with  what  the  contrary  would  be. 
Let  us  pray  to  be  grateful  to  the  great  Giver  of  Good,  and  for 
patience  under  whatever  His  will  may  be. 

And  again,  IS'ovember  Y  :— 

The  fact  is,  so  far  as  I  can  read  it,  my  strength  is  faded  nearly 
quite  away,  and  it  begins  to  be  more  and  more  evident  to  me 
that  I  shall  not  long  have  to  struggle  under  this  burden  of  life, 
but  soon  go  to  the  refuge  that  is  appointed  for  us  all.  For  a 
long  time  back  I  have  been  accustomed  to  look  at  the  Ernster 
Freund  as  the  most  merciful  and  indispensable  refuge  appointed 
by  the  Great  Creator  for  His  wearied  children  whose  work  is 
done.  Alas,  alas !  the  final  mercy  of  God,  it  in  late  years  always 
appears  to  me  is,  that  He  delivers  us  from  life  which  has  be- 
come a  task  too  hard  for  us. 

As  long  as  John  Carlyle  survive,  he  had  still  the  a^soci 


lUneas  of  John  Cwrhjle.  Wt- 

ate  of  his  early  years,  on  whose  affection  he  conld  rely,  and 
John,  as  the  younger  of  the  two,  might  be  expected  to  out- 
live him.  But  this  last  consolation  he  was  to  see  pass  from 
him.  John  Carlyle,  too,  was  sinking  under  the  weight  of 
years.  Illness  bore  heavily  on  him,  and  his  periodic  visits 
to  Chelsea  had  ceased  to  be  manageable.  His  home  was  at 
Dumfries,  and  the  accounts  of  him  which  reached  Cheyne 
Row  all  through  that  winter  were  less  and  less  hopeful.  It 
was  a  winter  memorable  for  its  long,  stern,  implacable 
frost,  which  bore  hard  on  the  aged  and  the  failing.  Though 
they  could  not  meet,  they  could  still  write  to  each  other. 

To  John  Carlyle. 

Chelsea :  December  14,  1878. 

My  dear  Brother, — On  coming  down  stairs  from  a  dim  and 
painful  night  I  find  your  punctual  Letter  here,  announcing  that 
mattei-s  are  no  better  with  yourself,  probably  in  some  respects 
even  worse.  We  must  be  patient,  dear  brother,  and  take  piously 
if  we  can  what  days  and  nights  are  sent  us.  The  night  before 
last  was  unusually  good  with  me.  All  the  rest,  especially  last 
night,  were  worse  than  usual,  and  little  or  no  sleep  attainable 
by  me.  In  fact  I  seem  to  perceive  that  there  is  only  one  hope, 
that  of  being  called  away  out  of  this  unmanageable  scene.  One 
must  not  presume  to  form  expi-ess  desires  about  it,  but  for  a  long 
time  back  the  above  has  been  my  clear  conviction.  About  you, 
dear  brother,  I  think  daily  with  a  tender  sorrow  for  your  sake, 
and  surely  have  to  own  with  you  tliat  there  is  no  good  news  to 
be  expected  from  either  side.  God's  will  be  done.  The  froet,  I 
perceive,  will  not  abate  yet,  and  the  darkness  gives  no  sign 
of  lessening  either.  Your  case,  dear  brother,  I  feel  to  be 
even  worse  than  my  own,  and  I  am  often  painfully  thinking  of 
you.  Let  us  summon  all  the  virtue  that  is  in  us,  if  there  be  any 
virtue  at  all,  and  quit  us  like  men  and  not  like  fools.  Mary 
sends  her  kindest  love.  To  me  she  is  unwearied  in  her  atten- 
tion ;  rose  last  night,  for  example,  as  she  ever  does  at  my  sum- 
mons; but  \\-as  not  able  last  night,  for  the  first  time,  to  do  me 


398  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

any  real  good.    I  send  my  love  to  sister  Jean,  and  am  always 
eager  for  news  of  her.     Blessings  on  you  all. 

I  am  ever,  dear  brother,  affectionately  yours, 

T.  Carlyle. 


A  little  more  and  John  was  gone.  As  his  condition 
grew  hopeless,  Carljle  was  afraid  every  day  that  the  end 
had  come,  and  that  the  news  had  been  kept  back  from  him. 
'  Is  my  brother  John  dead  ? '  he  asked  me  one  day  as  I 
joined  him  in  his  carriage.  He  was  not  actually  dead  then, 
but  he  suffered  only  for  a  few  more  days.  John  Carlyle 
would  have  been  remembered  as  a  distinguished  man  if  he 
had  not  been  overshadowed  by  his  greater  brother.  After 
his  early  struggles  he  worked  in  his  profession  for  many 
careful  years,  and  saved  a  considerable  fortune.  Then, 
in  somewhat  desultory  fashion  he  took  to  literature. 
He  wanted  brilliancy,  and  still  more  he  wanted  energy, 
but  he  had  the  virtue  of  his  family — veracity.  "What- 
ever he  undertook  he  did  faithfully,  with  all  his  abil- 
ity, and  his  translation  of  Dante  is  the  best  that 
exists.  He  needed  the  spur,  however,  before  he  would 
exert  himself,  and  I  believe  he  attempted  nothing  serious 
afterwards.  In  disposition  he  was  frank,  kind-hearted, 
generous;  entirely  free  from  all  selfishness  or  amtition; 
simple  as  his  brother  in  his  personal  habits;  and  ready 
always  with  money,  time,  or  professional  assistance,  wher- 
ever Jiis  help  was  needed.  When  Carlyle  bequeathed 
Craigenputtock  to  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  John  too 
settled  a  handsome  sum  for  medical  bursaries  there,  to 
encourage  poor  students.  These  two  brothers,  born  in  a 
peasant's  home  in  Annandale,  owing  Kttle  themselves  to  an 
Alma  Mater  which  had  missed  discovering  their  merits, 
were  doing  for  Scotland's  chief  University  what  Scotland's 
peers  and  merchants,  with  their  palaces  and  deer  forests 


AtUobiographical  Fragments.  899 

and  social  splendour,  had,  for  some  cause,  too  imperfectly 
supplied. 

James  Carlyle  and  three  sisters  still  remained,  and 
Carlyle  was  tenderly  attached  to  them.  But  John  had 
been  his  early  friend,  the  brother  of  his  heart,  and  his 
death  was  a  sore  blow.  He  bore  his  loss  manfully,  sub- 
mitting to  the  inevitable  as  to  the  will  of  his  Father  and 
Master.  He  was  very  feeble,  but  the  months  went  by 
without  producing  much  visible  change,  save  that  latterly 
in  his  drives  he  had  to  take  a  supply  of  liquid  food  with 
him.  He  was  still  fairly  cheerful,  and  tried,  though  with 
diminished  eagerness,  to  take  an  interest  in  pubhc  afEairs. 
He  even  thought  for  a  moment  of  taking  a  personal  part 
in  the  preparation  of  his  Memoirs.  Among  his  papers  I 
had  found  the  Reminiscences  of  his  father,  of  Irving,  of 
Jeffrey,  of  Southey  and  Wordsworth.  I  had  to  ask  myself 
whether  these  characteristic,  and  as  I  thought,  and  continue 
to  think,  extremely  beautiful  autobiographical  fragments, 
should  be  broken  up  and  absorbed  in  his  biography,  or 
whether  they  ought  not  to  be  published  as  they  stood,  in  a 
separate  volume.  I  consulted  him  about  it.  He  hatl  al- 
most forgotten  what  he  had  written ;  but  as  soon  as  he  had 
recalled  it  to  his  recollection  he  approved  of  the  separate 
publication,  and  added  that  they  had  better  be  brought  out 
immediately  on  his  death.  The  world  would  then  be  talk- 
ing about  him,  and  would  have  something  authentic  to  go 
upon.  It  was  suggested  that  he  might  revise  the  sheets 
personally,  and  that  the  book  might  appear  in  his  lifetime 
as  edited  by  himself.  He  turned  the  proposal  over  in  hifl 
mind,  and  considered  that  perhaps  he  might  try.  On  re- 
flection, however,  he  found  the  effort  would  be  too  much 
for  him.  He  gave  it  up,  and  left  everything  as  before  to 
me,  to  do  what  I  thought  proper. 

At  this  time  there  had  been  no  mention  and  no  pnrposer 


400  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

of  including  in  the  intended  volume  the  Memoir  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle.  This  was  part  of  his  separate  bequest  to  me,  and 
I  was  then  engaged,  as  I  have  already  said,  in  incorporat- 
ing both  memoir  and  letters  in  the  history  of  his  early  life. 
I  think  a  year  must  have  elapsed  after  this  before  the  sub- 
ject was  mentioned  between  us  again.  At  length,  however, 
one  day  about  three  months  before  his  death,  he  asked  me 
very  solemnly,  and  in  a  tone  of  the  saddest  anxiety,  what  I 
proposed  to  do  about '  the  Letters  and  Memorials.'  I  was 
sorry — for  a  fresh  evidence  at  so  late  a  date  of  his  wish  that 
the  Letters  should  be  published  as  he  had  left  them 
would  take  away  my  discretion,  and  I  could  no  longer  treat 
them  as  I  had  begun  to  do.  But  he  was  so  sorrowful  and 
earnest — though  still  giving  no  positive  order — that  I  could 
make  no  objection.  I  promised  him  that  the  Letters  should 
appear  with  such  reservations  as  might  be  indispensable. 
The  Letters  implied  the  Memoir,  for  it  had  been  agreed 
upon  from  the  first  between  us,  that,  if  Mrs.  Carlyle's 
Letters  were  published,  his  Memoir  of  her  must  be  pub- 
lished also.  I  decided,  therefore,  that  the  Memoir  should 
be  added  to  the  volume  of  Eeminiscences ;  the  Letters  to 
follow  at  an  early  date.  I  briefly  told  him  this.  He  was 
entirely  satisfied,  and  never  spoke  about  it  again. 

I  have  said  enough  already  of  Carlyle's  reason  for  pre- 
paring these  papers,  of  his  bequest  of  them  to  me,  and  of 
the  embarrassment  into  which  I  was  thrown  by  it.  The 
arguments  on  either  side  were  weighty,  and  ten  years 
of  consideration  had  not  made  it  more  easy  to  choose 
between  them.  My  final  conclusion  may  have  been  right 
or  wrong,  but  the  influence  which  turned  the  balance  was 
Carlyle's  persevering  wish,  and  my  own  conviction  that  it 
was  a  wish  supremely  honourable  to  him. 

This  was  in  the  autumn  of  1880,  a  little  before  his  85th 
l)irthday.     He  was  growing  so  visibly  infirm,  that  neither 


The  Approaching  Change,  401 

he  himself  nor  any  of  ub  expected  him  to  survive  the 
winter.     He  was  scarcely  able  even  to  wish  it 

He  was  attended  by  a  Scotch  physician  who  liad  lately 
settled  in  London.  He  disliked  doctors  generally,  and 
through  life  had  allowed  none  of  them  near  him  except  his 
brother ;  but  he  submitted  now  to  occasional  visits,  though 
he  knew  that  he  was  past  help  and  that  old  age  was  a  disease 
for  which  there  was  no  earthly  remedy.  I  was  sitting  with 
him  one  day  when  this  gentleman  entered  and  made  the 
usual  inquiries.  Carlyle  growled  some  sort  of  answer,  and 
then  said : — 

I  think  very  well  of  you,  sir.  I  expect  that  you  will  have 
good  success  here  in  London,  and  will  well  deserve  it.  For  me 
you  can  do  nothing.  The  only  thing  you  could  do,  you  must 
not  do — that  is,  help  me  to  make  an  end  of  this.  We  must  just 
go  on  as  we  are. 

He  was  entirely  occupied  with  his  approaching  change, 
and  with  the  world  and  its  concerns  we  could  see  that  he 
had  done  for  ever.  In  January  he  was  visibly  sinking. 
His  political  anticipations  had  been  exactly  fulfilled.  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  come  back  to  power.  Fresh  jars  of  paraffin 
had  been  poured  on  the  fire  in  Ireland,  and  anarchy  and 
murder  were  the  order  of  the  day.  I  mentioned  sometliing 
of  it  to  him  one  day.  He  listened  indifferently.  '  These 
things  do  not  interest  you  ? '  I  said.  '  JS'ot  the  least,'  he 
answered,  and  turned  languidly  away.  *  He  became  worse 
a  day  or  two  after  that.  I  went  down  to  see  him.  His  bed 
had  been  moved  into  the  drawing-room,  which  still  bore  the 
stamp  of  his  wife's  hand  upon  it.  Her  workbox  and  other 
ladies'  trifles  lay  about  in  their  old  places.  He  had  forbid- 
den them  to  be  removed,  and  they  stood  within  reach  of  his 
dying  hand. 

He  wfis  wandering  when  I  came  to  his  side.      He  reeoj;- 


402  Carlyle's  Life  in  London. 

nised  me.  *  I  am  very  ill,'  lie  said.  ^  Is  it  not  strange  that 
those  people  should  have  chosen  the  very  olde^  man  in  all 
Britain  to  make  suffer  in  this  way  % ' 

I  answered,  '  "VYe  do  not  exactly  know  why  those  people 
act  as  they  do.  They  may  have  reasons  that  we  cannot 
guess  at.'  '  Yes,'  he  said,  with  a  flash  of  the  old  intellect, 
'  it  would  be  rash  to  say  that  they  have  no  reasons.' 

When  I  saw  him  next  his  speech  was  gone.  His  eyes 
were  as  if  they  did  not  see,  or  were  fixed  on  something  far 
away.  I  cannot  say  whether  he  heard  me  when  I  spoke  to 
him,  but  I  said,  ^  Ours  has  been  a  long  friendship ;  I  will 
try  to  do  what  you  wish.' 

This  was  on  the  4th  of  February,  1881.  The  morning 
following  he  died.  He  had  been  gone  an  hour  when  I 
reached  the  house.  He  lay  calm  and  still,  an  expression  of 
exquisite  tenderness  subduing  his  rugged  features  into  fem- 
inine beauty.  I  have  seen  something  like  it  in  Catholic  pic- 
tures of  dead  saints,  but  never,  before  or  since,  on  any  hu- 
man countenance. 

So  closed  a  long  Hfe  of  eighty-five  years — a  life  in  which 
extraordinary  talents  had  been  devoted,  with  an  equally  ex- 
traordinary purity  of  purpose,  to  his  Maker's  service,  so  far 
as  he  could  see  and  understand  that  Maker's  will — a  life  of 
single-minded  effort  to  do  right  and  only  that ;  of  constant 
truthfulness  in  word  and  deed.  Of  Carlyle,  if  of  anyone,  it 
may  be  said  that  '  he  was  a  man  indeed  in  whom  was  no 
guile.'  No  insincerity  ever  passed  his  Kps  ;  no  dishonest  or 
impure  thought  ever  stole  into  his  heart.  In  all  those  long 
years  the  most  malicious  scrutiny  will  search  in  vain  for  a 
single  serious  blemish.  If  he  had  frailties  and  impatiences, 
if  he  made  mistakes  and  suffered  for  them,  happy  those 
whose  conscience  has  nothing  worse  to  charge  them  with. 
Happy  those  who,  if  their  infirmities  have  caused  pain  to 
others  who  were  dear  to  them,  have,  like  Carlyle,  made  the 


Offered  Sepulture  in  the  Alley,  403 

fault  into  a  virtue  by  the  simplicity  and  completenesB  of 
their  repentance. 

He  had  told  me  when  Mrs.  Carlyle  died,  that  he  hoped 
to  be  buried  beside  her  at  Haddington.  It  was  ordered 
otherwise,  either  by  himself  on  reconsideration,  or  for  some 
other  cause.  He  had  foreseen  that  an  attempt  might  be 
made  to  give  him  a  more  distinguished  resting-place  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  For  many  reasons  he  had  decided 
that  it  was  not  to  be.  He  objected  to  parts  of  the  English 
burial  service,  and,  veracious  in  everything,  did  not  chooeo 
that  words  should  be  read  over  him  which  he  regarded  aA 
untrue.  '  The  grain  of  com,'  he  said,  *  does  not  die ;  or  if  it 
dies,  does  not  rise  again.'  Something,  too,  there  was  of  the 
same  proud  feeling  which  had  led  him  to  decline  a  title. 
Funerals  in  the  Abbey  were  not  confined  to  the  deserving. 

When was  buried  there  he  observed  to  me,  *  There 

will  be  a  general  gaol  delivery  in  that  place  one  of  these 
days.'  His  own  direction  was  that  he  was  to  lie  with  his 
father  and  mother  at  the  spot  where  in  his  life  he  had  made 
so  often  a  pious  pilgrimage,  the  old  kirkyard  at  Ecclefe- 
chan. 

Dean  Stanley  wrote  to  me,  after  he  was  gone,  to  offer 
the  Abbey,  in  the  warmest  and  most  admiring  terms.  He 
had  applied  to  me  as  one  of  the  executors,  and  I  had  to  tell 
him  that  it  had  been  otherwise  arranged.  He  asked  that 
the  body  might  rest  there  for  a  night  on  the  way  to  Scot- 
land. This  also  we  were  obliged  to  decline.  Deeply  affect- 
ed as  he  was,  he  preached  on  the  Sunday  following  on  Car- 
lyle's  work  and  character,  introducing  into  his  sermon  a 
beautiful  passage  which  I  had  given  to  him  out  of  the  last 
journal. 

The  organ  played  afterwards  the  Dead  March  in 
^Saul' — grand,  majestic — as  England's  voice  of  farewell  to 
one  whose  work  for  England  had  closed,  and  yet  had  not 


404  Carlyle^s  Life  in  London. 

closed.  It  is  still,  perhaps,  rather  in  its  infancy ;  for  he, 
being  dead,  yet  speaks  to  us  as  no  other  man  in  this  cen- 
tury has  spoken  or  is  likely  to  speak. 

He  was  taken  down  in  the  night  by  the  railway.  I, 
Lecky,  and  Tyndall,  alone  of  his  London  friends,  were  able 
to  follow.  We  travelled  by  the  mail  train.  We  arrived 
at  Ecclef echan  on  a  cold  dreary  February  morning ;  such  a 
morning  as  he  himself  describes  when  he  laid  his  mother  in 
the  same  grave  where  he  was  now  to  rest.  Snow  had 
fallen,  and  road  and  field  were  wrapped  in  a  white  wind- 
ing-sheet. The  hearse,  with  the  coffin,  stood  solitary  in  the 
station  yard,  as  some  waggon  might  stand,  waiting  to  be 
unloaded.  They  do  not  study  form  in  Scotland,  and  the 
absence  of  respect  had  nothing  unusual  about  it.  But  the 
look  of  that  black,  snow-sprinkled  object,  standing  there  so 
desolate,  was  painful ;  and,  to  lose  sight  of  it  in  the  three 
hours  which  we  had  to  wait,  we  walked  up  to  Mainhill,  the 
small  farmhouse,  two  miles  distant,  where  he  had  spent  his 
boyhood  and  his  university  vacations.  I  had  seen  Mainhill 
before,  my  companions  had  not.  The  house  had  been  en- 
larged since  my  previous  visit,  but  the  old  part  of  it,  the 
kitchen  and  the  two  bedrooms,  of  which  it  had  consisted 
when  the  Carlyles  lived  there,  remained  as  they  had  been, 
with  the  old  alcoves,  in  which  the  beds  were  still  standing. 
To  complete  the  resemblance,  another  family  of  the  same 
station  in  life  now  occupied  it — a  shrewd  industrious  farm- 
er, whose  wife  was  making  cheeses  in  the  dairy.  Again 
there  were  eight  children,  the  elde^^  sons  at  school  in  the 
village,  the  little  ones  running  about  barefoot  as  Carlyle 
had  done,  the  girls  with  their  brooms  and  dusters,  and  one 
little  fellow  not  strong  enough  for  farm  work,  but  believed 
to  have  gifts,  and  designed,  by-and-by,  for  college.  It  was 
the  old  scene  ovar  again,  the  same  stage,  the  same  play, 
with  new  players.    We  stayed  looking  alx)ut  us  till  it  was 


Burial  at  EccUfecJiati .  4U5 

time  to  go,  aiid  then  waded  biick  through  the  lialf-inelted 
snow  to  the  station.  A  few  strangore  had  arrived  from 
Edinburgh  and  elsewhere,  but  not  many ;  for  the  family, 
simple  in  their  habits,  avoided  display,  and  the  day,  and 
even  the  place  of  the  funeral,  had  not  been  made  public. 
Two  or  three  carriages  were  waiting,  belonging  to  gentle- 
men in  the  neighbourhood.  Mr.  James  Carlyle  and  his 
sisters  were  there,  with  their  children,  in  carriages  also,  and 
there  was  a  carriage  for  us.  The  hearse  was  set  in  move- 
ment, and  we  followed  slowly  down  the  half-mile  of  road 
which  divides  the  station  from  the  village.  A  crowd  had 
gathered  at  the  churchyard,  not  disorderly,  but  seemingly 
with  no  feeling  but  curiosity.  There  were  boys  and  ^Is 
bright  with  ribands  and  coloured  dresses,  climbing  n]X)n 
the  kirkyard  walls.  There  was  no  minister-^-or  at  least  no 
ceremony  which  implied  the  presence  of  a  minister.  I 
could  not  but  contrast,  in  my  own  thoughts,  that  poor  and 
almost  ragged  scene,  with  the  trampled  sleet  and  dirt,  and 
'Zfriordered  if  not  ^^/^ordered  assemblage,  with  the  sad  ranks 
of  mourners  who  would  have  attended  in  thousands  had 
Dean  Stanley's  offer  been  accepted.  I  half -regretted  the 
resolution  which  had  made  the  Abbey  impossible.  Mel- 
ancholy, indeed,  was  the  impression  left  upon  me  by  tliat 
final  leave-taking  of  my  honoured  master.  The  kirk- 
yard was  peopled  with  ghosts.  All  round  me  were 
headstones,  with  the  names  of  the  good  old  villagers  of 
whom  I  had  heard  so  many  stories  from  him  :  the  school- 
master from  whom  he  had  learnt  his  first  Latin,  the  black- 
smith with  whom  his  f  atlier  had  argued  on  the  resurrection 
of  the  body,  his  father,  mother,  sister,  woven  into  the  life 
which  was  now  over,  and  wliich  it  was  to  fall  to  myself  to 
describe.  But  the  graves  were  soiled  with  half-thawed 
sleet,  the  newspaper  correspondents  were  busy  with  their 
pencils,  the  people  were  pressing  and  pushing  as  the  coffin 


406  Carhjlcs  Life  in  Ijondon. 

was  lowered  down.  Xot  in  this  way,  I  thought  for  a  mo- 
ment, ought  Scotland  to  have  laid  her  best  and  greatest  in 
his  solemn  sleeping-place.  But  it  was  for  a  moment  only. 
It  was  as  he  had  himself  desired.  They  whom  he  had 
loved  best  had  been  buried  so — all  so — and  with  no  other 
forms.  The  funeral  prayers  in  Scotland  are  not  offered  at 
the  grave,  but  in  private  houses,  before  or  after.  There 
was  nothing  really  unsuitable  in  what  habit  had  made  nat- 
ural and  fit.     It  was  over,  and  we  left  him  to  his  rest. 

In  future  years,  in  future  centuries,  strangers  will  come 
from  distant  lands — from  America,  from  Australia,  from 
New  Zealand,  from  every  isle  or  continent  where  the  Eng- 
lish language  is  spoken — to  see  the  house  where  Carlyle 
was  born,  to  see  the  green  turf  under  which  his  dust  is 
lying.  Scotland  will  have  raised  a  monument  over  his 
grave ;  but  no  monument  is  needed  for  one  who  has  made 
an  eternal  memorial  for  himself  in  the  hearts  of  all  to  whom 
truth  is  the  dearest  of  possessions. 

'  For  giving  his  soul  to  the  common  cause,  he  has  won  for 
himself  a  wreath  which  will  not  fade  and  a  tomb  the  raiost  hon- 
ourable, not  where  his  dust  is  decaying,  but  where  his  glory 
lives  in  everlasting-  remembrance.  For  of  illustrious  men  all 
the  earth  is  the  sepulchre,  and  it  is  not  the  inscribed  column 
iu  their  own  land  which  is  the  record  of  their  virtues,  but  the 
unwritten  memory  of  them  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  all  man* 
kind.' 


INDEX. 


ABERGWILI,  visit  to  Bishop 
Thirlwall  at,  i.  261 

Addiscorabe,  visits  to,  ii.  151 

Alma,  on  the  battle  of  the,  iL  147 

America,  good  news  from,  i.  125 ;  re- 
mittances from,  131,  lf>5 

American  Civil  War,  Carlvle's  allusion 
to  the,  ii.  2(K> 

Anarchy,  on  the  uses  of.  ii.  249 

Annandale,  incidents  at,  i.  215;  anec- 
dotes of,  234 ;  visits  to,  ii.  243,  274 

Anne  Boleyn,  Carlvle's  opinion  of  her 
guilt,  ii.  338 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  ii.  210 

Arnold,  Dr.,  of  Rugby,  on  the  '  French 
Revolution,'  L  153;  visited  by  Car- 
lyle,2I6 

Art,  Carlyle's  characteristic  remarks 
on,  i.  179 

Ashbiirton,  Lord  (father  of  Mr,  Efar- 
ing),  makes  the  acquaintance  of 
Carlyle,  i  296 ;  his  death,  379 

Ashley,  Lord  (afterwards  Lord  Shaf- 
tesbury), his  efforts  for  the  protec- 
tion or  factory  children,  i.  2Ni 

Athanasian  controversy,  on  the,  ii.  395 

Atheism,  modern,  Carlyle's  opinion 
of,  iL  317,  329 

Authors,  remarks  on,  i.  133 

Azeglio,  rebuke  of,  iL  109 

B  ABB  AGE,  i.  171 
Baring,  Lady  Harriet  (afterwards 
LaJy  Ashburton),  her  admiration 
for  Carlyle,  i.  292 ;  visited  by  Mrs, 
Carlyle,  15S;  her  death,  ii.  314 
Baring,  Mr.  (afterwards  Lord  Ashbur- 
ton), i.  i:',3.  292  ;  visited  by  the 
Carlyles.  317 ;  joint  tour  in  Scot- 
land, 3:i5 ;  Carlyle's  visits  to,  355, 
379,  ii.  209;  an  incident  at  the 
Grange,  ii.  109 ;  his  second  marriage, 
195;  his  illness,  227;  his  death, 
233  ;  legacy  to  Carlyle,  283 


Barry,  the  architect,  ii.  SIJ 

Bath,  description  of,  l  254 

Benthamism,  i.  247 

Berlm,  the  revolution  in,  i.  S70;  de- 
scription of  the  city,  ii  100 

Bemstorff,  Count  (Prussian  Ambas- 
sador in  London),  his  letter  to  Car* 
lyle.  ii..*345 

Blanc,  Louis,  visit  from,  L  385 

Boehm's  statue  of  Carlyle,  ii.  3M 

Bonn,  visit  to,  ii.  85 

Bores,  Carlyle's  contempt  for,  L  295 

Breslau,  visit  to,  i".  I^<9 

Bright,  Jacob,  acuuaintance  with,  L 
a52 

Bright,  John,  acquaintance  with,  L 
352 

Bromley,  Miss  Davenport,  visit  to,  ii 
277 

Bruges,  visit  to,  i  224 

Budget  of  a  Femme  TncomprUe,  ii. 
138 

Buller,  Charles,  i  159,  219;  his  high 
Parliamentary  reputation,  383 ;  bis 
death,  38:} ;  Carlyle's  elegy  o.i.  383 

Bullers,  the.  their  kindness  to  Carlyle, 
219 ;  death  of  Mrs.  Buller,  888 

Bunsen,  meeting  with,  i  134 

Buxton,  visit  to,  i.  350 

CAMBRIDGE  friends,  Uberality  of, 
i  130 
Cant,  Carlyle's  detestation  of,  ii  14 
Carleton,  the  novelist,  i.  340 
Carlyle,  James  (brother  of  T.  Carlyle). 

represent*  Carlyle  at  the  funeral  of 

the  letter's  mother-in-law,  i  901 ; 

visits  his  brother  in  linden,  805 ; 

his  oharaoter.  ii.  12:1 
Carlyle.  Alick  (brother  of  T.  Carlyle), 

the  death  of,  ii  375 
Carlyle,  Jane   Welsh,  her  opinion  of 

the    rewritten    burnt    manoaoript, 

L  46;   Carlyle's  lott«s  to,  M,  65, 


408 


Index. 


67,  95,  125,  126,  178,  202,  256, 
257,  261,  271,  302,  311,  324,  325, 
336,  371,  ii  9-12,  45,  74,  96, 
149,  178,  235;  her  illness,  i.  63; 
visits  her  mother  m  Scotland,  63  ; 
her  domestic  trials,  68 ;  returns 
to  London  in  better  spirits,  69 ; 
again  seriously  ill,  86 ;  gives  a 
soiree,  134;  accompanies  Carlyle  to 
Scotland,  143 ;  her  temper,  154 ; 
her  close  friendship  with  Miss 
Geraldine  Jewsbury,  177;  letter  to 
her  mother  on  affairs  in  Cheyi)e 
Row,  198 ;  her  illness  at  Liverpool 
on  learning  the  death  of  her 
mother,  199;  returns  to  Cheyne 
Row,  205 ;  consents  to  follow  the 
Bullers  to  Suffolk,  219 ;  her  birthday 
present  from  Carlyle,  259 ;  super- 
intends the  alterations  in  Cheyne 
Row,  281  ;  her  indomitable  spirit 
under  illness,  291  ;  visits  Lady  Har- 
riet Baring,  314  ;  visits  the  Bar- 
ings in  Hampshire,  316  ;  her  dislike 
of  Addiscombe,  320-  disagreement 
with  Carlyle,  324  ;  goes  to  Seaforth, 
324 ;  seeks  advice  from  Mazziui, 
325  ;  his  letters  in  answer,  325,  328  ; 
returns  to  Cheyne  Row,  335  ;  resolu- 
tion regarding  the  Barings,  336 ; 
friendship  with  Mazzini,  343  ;  ac- 
companies Carlyle  to  the  Grange, 
348 ;  and  to  Matlock  and  Buxton, 
350 ;  her  illness  at  Addiscombe, 
353;  visits  Haddington,  ii.  7; 
writes  to  John  Carlyle,  7 ;  her 
description  of  a  Scotch  wedding, 
8  ;  visit  to  the  Grange,  75  ;  decides 
not  to  accompany  Carlyle  to  Ger- 
many, 83  ;  visits  John  Carlyle  and 
his  wife  at  Moffat,  111 ;  nurses 
Carlyle's  mother,  113 ;  her  thrifti- 
ness,  136 ;  Budget  of  a  Femme  In- 
comprise^  138 ;  begins  h^-r  diary, 
153  ;  satirical  letter  from,  157  ;  goes 
to  Haddington,  160  ;  her  opinion  of 
the  opening  of  'Frederick,'  165; 
grows  weaker  in  health,  167;  her 
improved  condition,  175 ;  domestic 
trials,  198 ;  improved  domestic 
arrangements,  206 ;  her  delicate 
condition,  212 ;  goes  to  Nithsdale, 
212  ;  note  to  Mr.  Froude  on  Bishop 
Colenso,  223  ;  her  continued  weak- 
ness, 227  ;  accident.  230  ;  goes  to  St. 
Leonards,  233;  flight  to  A'-nandale, 
234  ;  her  partial  recovery,  240  ;  loses 
the  power  of  her  right  arm,  243  ; 
goes  to  Nithsdale,  246  ;  and  returns 


to  Cheyne  Row,  247;  her  last  part- 
ing from  her  husband,  256 ;  her 
pleasure  at  the  success  of  Carlyle's 
Edinburgh  address,  261  ;  her  death, 
265;  and  funeral,  268;  dawn  of 
the  '  Letters  and  Memorials  of ' 
306 

Carlyle,  John  (brother  of  T.  Carlyle), 
i.  18,  29;  Carlyle's  letters  to,  46, 
61,  71,  82,  85,  101,  115,  143.  144,  152, 
380,  ii.  167,  203,  345,  369;  visits 
his  brother  in  Cheyne  Row,  i. 
62  ;  criticises  his  MS. ,  69  ;  devotes 
himself  to  the  poor  in  Rome  during 
the  cholera,  100  ;  his  thoughtfulness 
for  his  brother,  143  ;  his  influence 
over  him,  253  ;  leaves  for  Scotland, 
253  ;  his  translation  of  Dante's 
*  Inferno, '  ii.  7;  death  of  his  wife, 
136  7iote  ;  stays  with  his  brother  at 
Cheyne  Row,  276  ;  returns  to  Scot- 
land, 277  ;  meets  his  brother  on  his 
return  from  Mentone,  291  ;  his 
death,  398 ;  his  character.  398 ;  his 
bequest  to  Edinburgh  University, 
398 

Carlyle,  Margaret  (mother  of  T.  Car- 
lyle). her  anxiety  regarding  Car- 
lyle's faith,  i.  58 ;  characteristic 
letters  to  her  son,  54,  163  ;  Carljde's 
letters  to,  i.  81,  88,  107,  243,  2S4, 
287,  2S8,  348,  374,  381,  386,  ii.  92, 
118;  her  increasing  weakness,  i.  311, 
312;  Carlyle  visits  her,  212,  3-2,  ii. 
142  ;  her  indignation  at  Lady  Harriet 
Baring's  treatment  of  Mrs.  Carlyle, 
i.  353  ;  divines  domestic  trouble  in 
Cheyne  Row,  ii.  69 ;  death,  121 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  his  opinion  of  biog- 
raphy, i.  1  ;  beginning  of  life  in 
Cheyne  Row,  7 ;  uncertain  pros- 
pects, 8  ;  absorbed  in  French  Revo- 
lution, 10  ;  his  creed,  11  ;  on  litera- 
ture as  a  profession,  19,  70,  112  ;  his 
reception  of  the  news  of  the  burnt 
manuscript,  23;  compensation  for, 
25 ;  resolves  to  rewrite  the  volume, 
24 ;  meets  Wordsworth.  27 ;  his 
poverty  and  confidence.  29  ;  blank 
prospects,  31  ;  his  style,  34,  45  ; 
its  justification,  35 ;  refuses  to 
recognize  any  body  of  believers, 
37;  thoughts  of  abandoning  litera- 
ture, 40  ;  finishes  the  rewriting  of 
the  burnt  volume,  47  ;  starts  for 
Scotland,  49 ;  returns  to  Chelsea, 
52 ;  refuses  to  be  connected  with 
parties,  56 ;  Mr.  Basil  Montagu's 
offer  of  employment,  57 ;  mode  of 


Index, 


409 


life,  59 ;  relaxation  in  garden  work, 
01  ;  pleasure  in  iiig  brother's  com- 
pany, O'i  ;  the  discipline  of  gi'uius, 
02 ;  visits  John  Mill,  68 ;  progress 
of  his  work,  64;  reception  of  the 
*  Diamond  Necklace '  by  the  critics, 
09 ;  pessimistic  views  of  literary 
life,  70 ;  completes  the  '  French 
Revolution,'  73 ;  his  belief  in  the 
Divine  guidance  of  the  world's 
affairs,  77  ;  his  '  word-pictures,*  78  ; 
his  inflexible  love  ot  truth,  79 ; 
reception  of  his  work  by  contem- 
poraries, 80 ;  consents  to  deliver 
lectures  in  London,  84  ;  prospectus 
of  the  lectures,  85  ;  their  success, 
89;  visits  Scotland,  93;  returns 
to  London,  98;  his  kindness  to 
others,  100 ;  thoughts  on  the 
cholera,  100 ;  resolutions  against 
vanity,  102 ;  proposals  from  the 
publishers  regarding  reprints  of  his 
works,  104 ;  distaste  for  public 
employment,  111  ;  prepares  for 
seconrt  course  of  lectures,  113; 
opinion  of  popularity  and  its  value, 
114;  depressing  effect  of  lecturing 
upon  him,  119;  visits  Kirkcaldy, 
1*^4 ;  calls  on  Jeffrey,  124 ;  goes  to 
Scotsbrig,  125 ;  evidences  in  Lon- 
don of  his  growing  importance, 
128 ;  agrees  to  write  on  Cromwell 
for  the  '  London  and  Westminster,' 
128 ;  agitates  for  the  insiitution 
of  a  public  leading  library.  131  ; 
resulting  in  the  formation  of  the 
London  Library,  181  ;  on  authors 
and  publishers,  182;  first  impres- 
sions on  the  records  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, 132 ;  makes  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Monckton  Milnes, 
13  J ;  Bunsen,  134 ;  and  Mr.  Baring 
(afterwards  Lord  Ashburton),  184 ; 
remarks  on  Mrs.  Carlyle's  8oiree,l*i5; 
interview  with  Count  d'Orsay,  136 ; 
success  of  third  course  of  lectures, 
187;  his  dissatisfaction  with  them, 
187;  his  fear  of  being  led  away 
by  public  speaking,  i:^;  reflections 
on  condition  of  the  working  classes, 
188  ;  corresponds  with  Mill  and 
Lockhart  on  writing  an  article 
thereon,  140  ;  meets  Webster,  141  ; 
his  portrait  of  him,  141  ;  becomes 
acquainted  with  Connop  Thirlwall 
(afterwards  Bishop  of  St.  David's), 
142  ;  receives  present  of  a  mare, 
142  ;  visits  Scotland,  143  :  first  ox- 
perienoe  of  railway  travelling,  U4  ; 


benefit  derived  from  riding,  14S : 
continues  article  on  *  CbartiUm,* 
147 :  which  Lockhart  rcfoMHi.  14t$ ; 
publishes  the  article  in  book  form 
•uccessfuUy,  149 ;  iu  reoepium 
by  the  critics.  149;  on  herocii,  I.Vl; 
proposed  disouurncs  on  *  H«ro««  Mid 
Hero-worshin,'  151  ;  receives  con- 
gratulatory lettern  from  HtranKem, 
153  ;  his  unrest,  154  ;  his  letU'is  oii 
Heroes,  155  ;  resolves  to  put  tbem 
into  book  form,  158 ;  his  trestmenfc 
of  uncongenial  company,  199 ;  on 
special  juries.  102  ;  remarks  on  the 
supposed  Micatdav  article  about 
him  in  the  '  Edinourgh  Keview,* 
164 ;  receives  further  remittances 
from  America,  1(*5 ;  finishes '  Lect- 
ures on  Hcroeti,'  KXi ;  wishes  to  live 
by  the  sea,  169;  cu:itinues  studies 
j  on  the  Commonwealth,  170 ;  im- 
j  patience  with  London,  172 ;  his 
j  nervous  irritability,  174 ;  exp jri- 
ence  of  a  special  jury.  175-  comes 
I  to  terms  with  Fraser  al)out  lectures 
I      on    '  Hero-worship,'  110;    first  »c- 

3uaintance    with     Miss    Geraldine 
ewsbury,    177  ;    goes  to  Firston 
j      with  Milues.  178 ;  visits  the  jismes 
Marshalls  at  Headiogly,  181 ;  a  new 
experience  of  life  in  English  oonn- 
I      try  houses,  182 ;  proceeds  to  Liver- 
pool and  Dumfriesshire,  183 ;  takes 
I      acottiiL'e  on  the  Solway  for  the  som- 
I      ni  es  in  seclusion,   180; 

I      rti  .  ridon,    189;  difficulty 

j  iu  tx^Miiiiiii;;  '  Cromwell,' 190;  dis- 
belief ill  the  present  being  better 
than  the  past,  190 ;  sets  out  to  at- 
tend his  mother-in-law's  funeral, 
201 ;  is  left  sole  executor,  201  ;  his 
life  at  Templand,  202,  201;  incident 
in  Crawford  churchyard.  211 ;  visits 
his  mother,  212 ;  his  pride  in  his 
family  pedij^ee.  215 ;  visits  Dr.  Ar- 
nold at  Rugby.  216;  the  battle-field 
of  Naseby,  217  ;  returns  to  Ix>ndon, 
218;  goes  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons  to  hear  CharJe*  HiilU»r  spoak. 
219;  hisopiiii        "    '     T!  • '" 

agrees  to  acco: 
Rice  to  Ost«M 
tive  power,  221  ;  v. 
returns   to  Londo- 
appreciatioa  o^  '•'- 
besoroas  aoQu 


ral- 


vitiu  py 


410 


Index. 


234  ;    St.  Ives,  235  ;    Huntingdon, 

235  ;  his  slow  progress  with  '  Crom- 
well,' 238 ;  his  prophecies  regarding 
the  future  laughed  at,  240 ;  the 
birth  of  'Past  and  Present,'  240; 
rapidity  of  its  composition,  242  ;  re- 
ception of  the  work,  244  ;  its  effect 
among  his  contemporaries,  246  ; 
his  position  and  influence,  248 ; 
passion  for  truth,  250  ;  earnestness, 
252 ;  opinion  of  the  reviews  on 
'Past  and  Present,'  253;  accepts 
invitations  to  visit  South  Wales, 
254  ;  visits  the  Bishop  of  St. 
David's,  362  ;  description  of  an  inn 
at  Gloucester,  267 ;  surveys  the 
battlefield  of  Worcester,  267 ;  ar- 
rives at  Liverpool,  268  ;  sees  Father 
Mathew,  268 ;  brief  tour  in  North 
Wales  with  his  brother,  269  ;  goes 
to  Scotsbrig,  270;  reflections  on  a 
biography  of  Ralph  Erskine,  273; 
visits  Templand  and  Crawford 
churchyard,  275  ;  Haddington,  276 ; 
remarks  on  Irish  and  Highland 
shearers,  277 ;  visits  Jeffrey  and 
Erskine,  278 ;  and  returns  to  Lon- 
don, 279 ;  effects  upon  him  of  the 
alterations  in  Cheyne  Row,  280  ; 
conscientiousness  in  writing,  285  ; 
refuses  a  professorship  at  St. 
Andrews,  288 ;  delight  at  the 
success  of  the  movement  for  the 
protection  of  factory  children 
288  ;  anxiety  for  his  mother,  289 
difficulties  with  '  Cromwell, '  289 
low  estimate  of  his  own  work,  290 
an  evening  with  the  Barings  at 
Addiscombe,  292  ;  his  contempt  for 
bores,  295  ;  life  at  the  Grange,  296  ; 
progress  with  'Cromwell,'  300;  its 
completion,  304;  nature  of  the 
work,  305 ;  effect  upon  his  mind 
of  the  long  study  of  the  Common- 
mealth,  307  ;  political  conclusions, 
308  ;  the  rights  of  majorities,  308 
joins  his  wife  at  Seaforth,  311 
goes  on  to  Scotsbrig,  311  ;  the 
reception  of  ^  Cromwell '  by  the 
public,  316 ;  dawn  of  '  Frederick 
the  Great,'  315;  returns  to  London, 
315;  visits  the  Barings  in  Hamp- 
shire in  company  with  his  wife, 
31 6  ;  domestic  clouds,  324  ;  solicited 
to  assist  the  '  Young  Ireland  '  party, 
333 ;  impatience  at  his  wife's  silence, 
334 ;  accompanies  the  Barings  to 
Scotland,  335;  visits  Ireland,  339; 
witnessea  the    last    appearance    of 


O'Connell.  330  ;  meets  Carleton,  the 
novelist,  340  ;  dines  with  John  Mit- 
chel,  340  ;  returns  to  England,  341 ; 
meets  with  Margaret  Puller,  442  ; 
visits  Lord  and  Lady  Ashburton  at 
the  Grange,  344  ;  visits  the  Barings, 
345  ;  his  sympathy  for  Ireland,  346  ; 
visits  from  Jeffrey,  347 ;  and  from 
Dr.  Chalmers,  347 ;  his  advice  to 
young  men  on  literature  as  a  pro- 
fession, 349 ;  visits  Matlock  and 
Buxton,  350  ;  and  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster 
at  Rawdon,  350;  makes  the  ac- 
quaintance of  John  and  Jacob 
Bright,  351  ;  visits  his  mother,  352  ; 
returns  to  London,  354 ;  visit  to 
the  Barings,  355  ;  corresponds  with 
Baron  Rothschild  on  the  Jew  Bill, 
358 ;  his  financial  circumst  inces, 
358 ;  projects  for  new  books,  361  ; 
the  'Exodus  from  Houndsditch, ' 
361 ;  thinks  of  writmg  a  work  on 
democracy,  366 ;  meets  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  369 ;  thoughts  on  the  state  of 
Europe,  370 ;  on  Chartism,  372 ; 
writes  newspaper  articles,  373 ; 
accompanies  Emerson  to  Stone- 
henge,  376  ;  visits  the  Barings,  379  ; 
his  opinion  of  the  proposed  Crom- 
well statue,  384 ;  visited  by  Louis 
Blanc,  386 ;  encounters  Louis 
Napoleon,  386 ;  provides  temporary 
refuge  for  Charles  Gavan  Duffy, 
389  ;  becomes  acquainted  with  Mr. 
J.  A.  Froude,  390 ;  tour  through 
Ireland,  ii.  1  ;  meet  Gavan  Duffy, 
3  ;  and  Petrie,  the  antiquarian,  3 ; 
declines  an  invitation  from  the 
Viceroy,  3  ;  his  description  of  Kil- 
dare,  3 ;  meets  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster, 
5 ;  his  opinion  of  Lord  George 
Hill's  experiment  in  Donegal,  5 ; 
address  at  Derry,  6  ;  stays  at 
Scotsbrig,  8  ;  visits  the  Ashburtons 
at  Glen  Truim,  8  ;  his  description 
of  a  Highland  shooting  paradise,  11 ; 
returns  to  Scotsbrig,  12 ;  his  de- 
testation of  cant,  14  ;  his  bitterness 
on  the  Negro  question,  21 ;  severs 
his  connection  with  Mill,  22  ;  visits 
Millbank  Penitentiary,  25 ;  a  re- 
miniscence of  old  times,  31  ;  his 
habits  of  declamation,  35  ;  invited 
to  dine  with  Sir  Robert  Peel,  35 ; 
meets  Prescott,  Cubitt,  and  Barry 
the  architect,  36 ;  meets  Savage 
Landor,  42 ;  visits  Mr.  Redwood, 
43 ;  his  description  of  Merthvr 
Tydvil,  44 ;    life  at  Scotsbrig,  46  ; 


Index, 


,411 


reaction  after  the  Pamphletn,  47; 
his  (liccontent,  4S  ;  vihitu  the  Mar- 
shalb,  50 ;  returns  to  London,  63 ; 
dissatisfied  with  Wycherley'n  Come- 
dies, 55 ;  writes  the  'Life  of  Ster- 
ling,' 58 ;  his  remarks  on  a  portrait 
of  himself,  64  ;  on  a  peculiarity  of 
the  English   language,  (30  note  ;  on 
the  Crystal  Palace,  67,   130;    ^oes 
to  the  waters  at  Malvcru,  68  ;  vuits 
the  Ashburtons  in  Paris,  70 ;  meets 
Thiers,  Mcrime'e,  and  Laborde,  70  • 
resolves    to    write    the    history   oi 
Frederick  the  Great,  73  ;  magnitnde 
of  the  task,  73 ;  studies  for    '  Fred- 
crick,'   76;  proiects  going  to  Ger- 
many,   78 ;     visits    Linlathen,    79 ; 
resolves  to  visit  Germany,  K2  ;  at 
Bonn,      bn ;      dei>r  viption    of      the 
Rhine,    88;     at     Frankfv.rt,     90; 
Hombnrg,  91  ;    Marbourc,  KYi ;    de- 
scription  of   Goethe's    house,    95; 
and  Schiller's,  96 ;    his   opinion  of 
Hermhut,  99 ;    description  of  Ber- 
lin, 100 ;  end  of    the  journey,  101 ; 
retrospect,  104 ;     on  the    Duke    of  i 
Wellington's     funeral,      107 ;      the  { 
beginning  of   'Frederick,'  1C8;  re- j 
bukes  Azeglio,  109;  an  incident  at  j 
the  Grange,  109 ;  revival  of  the  cock  I 
nuisance.  115  ;  extract  from  journal  j 
on  his  miseries,  116;  his  last  letter  ' 
to    his    mother,     118;     hnrries    to 
Scotsbrig  in  time  to  see   her  once  i 
more,  120;  on  his  mother's  death,  I 
131;  his  grief,   124;    his  opinion  of  i 
the  Crimean  war,  128  ;  and  of  Louis  : 
Napoleon,    129;     the    sound-proof  | 
room,  130 ;  the  journal  of  a  day,  j 
136  ;  the  economies  of  Cheyne  Row,  J 
137;    Fources  of   income,   137;    his 
difficulties  over  '  Frederick,'  146  ;  on 
the  battle  of  the   Alma,  1 47 ;  and 
Louis  Napoleon's  visit  to  England,  ; 
148;     visit    to    Suffolk,    149,    149;! 
goes  to   Addiscombe,    151  ;    spends  I 
the  autumn  in  Scotland,  15*5  ;  visits 
the  Ashburtons,  157 ;   grief  at  the 
death  of  Lady  Ashburton,  158;  his 
liortjc    Fritz,    159  ;     progress  with  j 
'Frederick.'     160;     fresh   worries,' 
162 ;    the   difficulties    in    costume,  I 
164,   178:    remarks  on  the  Indian 
Mutinj',  i65 ;  »nd  on  London  Christ- 
mas, 16*5;  on  Scotch  servants,  168; 
completion  of  first  two  volumes  of 
the  'Frederick,'  170;  his '  Frederick' 
compared  with    '  Walter    Shandy.'  , 
174  ;  a  night  in  a  railway  train,  1 16; 


pays  visit  to  Craigenpnttoek,  182 ; 
Moond  tour  in  Germany,  \b\-  nar. 
rative  of  his  Journey,  IM:  \isiU 
RQB«m.  185;  Frederiek't  baiU*. 
fields.  188 :  BrMlao,  180 ;  FnTm- 
and  DreMien,  100;  fvtttnu  to  Loo- 
don.  191  •  bis  masierlT  grup  of  tb* 
battle-fields,  1V«;  saocMsof* Fred- 
erick,' 193;  effecU  of  literary  Ufc, 
196;  mode  of  life,  109;  Ukes  a 
house  in  Fife,  200 ;  visits  Thnxso 
Castle,  201  ;  improved  '^fltntitio 
arrangemenU,  20(5;  his  JErkndahip 
with  John  Hnskin,  207;  on  the 
American  Civil  War,  200;  visit 
to  the  Grange,  209;  publication  of 
third  volume  of  'Frederick.'  I'l 3;  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  Mr.  Fronde, 
215 ;  his  charity,  216  ;  fais  compaa- 
pion  for  suffering,  217;  as  a  com- 
panion, 218  ;'hiB  distrust  of  modem 
science,  219;  his  estimate  of  re- 
ligion, 220;  and  materialism,  221;  his 
opinion  of  Dean  Stanley,  223  ;  and 
Colenso,  22:^  ;  on  litetatore  and  its 
value.  224 ;  is  compared  to  St  Paul, 
225  ;  tone  of  his  conversation,  2a»> ; 
breakdown  of  his  horse  Fritz,  22>S ; 
on  Dickens's  reading,  229 ;  his  wife's 
accident,  230;  his  blindness  to  ito 
nature,  231 ;  accompanies  herto  Bt 
Leonards,  232 ;  takes  a  honse  there, 
233  ;  alone  in  Cheyne  Row,  IS5 ; 
presents  his  wife  with  a  broogham, 
240;  completes  '  Frederick.'^  840; 
coes  to  Annandale^  243 ;  visits  ibe 
Speddings  at  Keswick,  247  ;  retama 
to  Che}'ne  Row.  250  ;  his  feelings 
towards  Edinburf^h,  252 ;  cboeen 
Rector  of  the  Univcrsitr.  2Si ;  his 
opinion  of  Ruskin's  '  Etnios  of  tbe 
Dust,'  25:S ;  departs  for  Edinbovfh, 
255 ;  his  last  parting  from  bis  wUe. 
256 ;  insUUation  as  Rector.  257;  hu 
speech,  '<^7 ;  its  effect  on  ine  world. 
260;  temporary  popularity  of  bis 
works,  260;  recognized  bii  a  'great 
man,'  261  ;   praise  from   the  news- 

Sapers.  262 ;  delayed  by  an  acci- 
ent,  26.'! ;  his  reception  of  the 
news  of  his  wife's  death,  287;  re- 
turns to  London,  SOS;  Mooo- 
Bmies  tbe  body  of  his  wife  to 
addingUm,  968;  her  tumnl,  SOB; 
receives  message  from  the  Qaetn, 
272;  his  reply,  278 ;  attempUat  oc- 
oupation,  2i6;  vinits  MIm  iMvenport 
Bromlev,  277 ;  and  Ladjr  Aahbartoo 
at  Mentone,  288 ;  rttvns  to  iiLf  • 


412 


Index. 


land,  391  ;  his  charities,  295  ;  on 
public  affairs,  295 ;  publishes 
'Shooting  Niagara,'  298;  his  last 
public  utterance  on  English  poli- 
tics, 300 ;  resumes  riding,  oOO ; 
daily  worries,  800  ;  revision  of  his 
'  Collected  Works,'  301  ;  his  weari- 
ness of  life,  302 ;  visit  to  Wools- 
thorpe,  304  ;  receives  a  visit  from 
his  brother  James,  304 ;  oa  the 
Clerkenwell  explosion,  304  ;  retro- 
spect, 305  ;  dawn  of  '  the  Letters 
and  Memorials  of  Mrs.  Carlyle,' 
306  ;  interests  himself  in  the  defence 
of  Eyre,  310  ;  his  opinion  of  the  dis- 
establishment of  the  Irish  Church, 
311  ;  and  of  Tyndall's  lecture  on 
Faraday.  312  ;  visits  Lord  North- 
brook,  313;  meets  S.G.O.  ('the Rev. 
Lord  Sydney'),  314;  makes  selec- 
tions from  his  wife's  letters,  314 ; 
meditations  from  his  journal,  315  ; 
his  opinion  of  modern  atheism,  317, 
329  ;  and  ol:  oratory,  318  ;  another 
riding  accident,  323 ;  meets  the 
Queen  at  Westminster,  323  ;  loses 
the  power  of  his  rignt  hand,  332  ; 
on  the  death  of  his  friend  Erskine, 
333  ;  on  the  uses  of  anarchy,  334 ; 
on  Anne  Boleyn,  337 ;  on  Ginx's 
Baby,  339 ;  on  the  Franco-German 
war,  340;  and  ISTapoleon  IIL,  340; 
on  the  victory  of  Germany,  341  ; 
on  the  prospects  for  France,  341  ; 
on  Russia's  breach  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris,  342;  his  letter  to  the 
'  Times '  on  the  Franco-German 
question,  343 ;  its  effect  on  the 
English  people,  345 ;  on  the  loss  of 
the  use  of  his  right  hand.  347  ;  gives 
his  Avife's  Reminiscences  into  the 
keeping  of  Mr.  Froude  348;  in- 
trusts Mr.  Froude  with  the  writing 
of  his  biography,  353 ;  his  latest 
writings,  356 ;  on  the  death  of 
Bishop  Wilberforce  and  J.  S.  Mill, 
4358  ;  on  Mill's  Autobiography,  358  ; 
on  Mr.  Lecky,  360 ;  on  the  Irish 
policy  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  361  ;  on 
Sir  James  Stephen,  363 ;  his  last 
entry  in  the  journal,  362  ;  receives 
the  Order  of  Merit  from  Prussia, 
363  ;  on  the  general  election  of  1 874, 
364 ;  on  Gladstone  and  Disraeli, 
365,382;  his  answers  to  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli's letter  on  a  proposed  recogni- 
tion of  his  intellect,  and  to  the 
Countess  of  Derby,  368  ;  tributes 
of  respect  on  his  eightieth  birthday, 


371 ;  mode  of  life,  373  ;  his  opinion 
of  Trevelyan's  '  Life  of  Macaulay,' 
373  ;  a  characteristic  letter  of  advice 
to  a  young  man,  374 ;  on  the  death 
of    his  brother    Alick,  375 ;  on  the 
policy  of  the  Tory  party  daring  the 
Russo-Turkish  war,  376  ;  his  letter 
to   the    'Times'    thereon,  378 ;  an 
amusing  incident  in  Kew  Gardens, 
380  ;    his  opinion    of    the    British 
Parliament,  381  ;  meets  Sir  Garnet 
Woiseiey,    381 ;  his  opinion   of  the 
Jews,  384;  on  London  housebuild- 
ing, 385  ;  and  the  Church  of   Eng- 
land,   385  ;  his  opinion   of  the  ser- 
vices at  St.  Paul's  and  Westminster, 
386  ;  his  irritation  at   his   decaying 
powers,  387  ;  on  progress,  388 ;    his 
tenacious  memory,  391 ;  his  knowl- 
edge  of  his  approachiug  end,  391  ; 
his     unswerving     rectitude,     393; 
Boehm's  statue  of  him,  394;  Millais's 
portrait,  395  ;  his   opinion  of  Gib- 
bon's  'Decline  and    Fall,' 395  ;  his 
anxiety  regarding  the  '  Letters  and 
Memorials,'    400 ;      his     dislike    of 
doctors,  401  ;  increasing  weakness, 
and  death,  403  ;  his  funeral,  404 
Cavaignac,  General,  i.  374 
Chalmers,  Dr.,  visits  Carlyle,  i.  347 
I  Charter  is.  Lady  Anne,  i.  345 
j  Chartism,  i.  137  ;  article  on,  147,  149  ; 
I      thoughts  upon,  372 
I  Chartism    and   Radicalism,   Carlyle' s 
i      estimate  of,  i.  137,  147 
i  Chepstow,  description  of,  i.  255 
j  Cheyne  Row,   beginning  of  life,  in,  i. 
!      7;  effect   on  Carlyle  of   alterations 
I      in,  ;.'80  ;  visitors  to,  ii.  56  ;  the  econo- 
I-     mies  of,  137';  alone  in,  235,  250,  291 ; 
I      strange  applications  at,  331 
^  Cholera,  thoughts  on  the,  i.  100 
;  Christianity  and    political    economy, 

difference  between,  ii.  27 
I  Church  of  England,  Carlyle's  views  on 

the,  ii.  385 
!  Clerkenwell  explosion,  on  the,  ii.  304 
j  Clough.  Arthur,  his  reason  for  leav- 
j      ing   Oxford,  i.  390;  Carlyle's   high 
!      opinion  of  him,  390 ;  his  death,  ii. 
:      206 

Cockbum,  Lord,  Carlyle's  estimate  of, 
I      ii.  135 
Colenso,  Bishop,  Carlyle's  opinion  of, 
j      ii.  223  ;  Mrs.  Carlyle's  note  to  Mr. 
I      Froude  on,  ii.  323 
;  Coleridge,  i.  38;  ii.  60 
.  Cologne    Cathedral    anecdote  of,   ii 
'      113  note 


Index. 


418 


Commons.  Hou«e  of,  Carlyle  visiU 
the,  i.  219  ;  hin  opinion  of  it,  219 

Commonwealth,  Carlyle's  first  impres- 
sions on  the  records  of  the,  i.  lo2 ; 
continues  Iheir  study,  170  ;  its  effect 
on  his  mind,  307 

Commune,  the  French,  Carlyle's 
opinion  of,  ii.  345 

Conservatism,  remarks  on,  i.  21 

Craigenputtock,  visit  to.  ii.  182;  be- 
queathed to  University  of  Edin- 
burgh, ^^94 

Crawford  churchyard,  incident  in,  i. 
211 ;  visit  to.  274 

Crimean  war,  the,  ii.  129 

Cromwell,  L  128,  130,  132;  difficulty 
in  beginning  Life  of.  ll»l  ;  its  l>e- 
ginnings,  ^3  ;  difficulties  with, 
289 ;  its  progress,  300 ;  and  com- 
pletion, 304 ;  its  reception  bv  the 
public,  316;  new  edition  called  for, 
310  ;  Carlyle's  opinion  of  the  pro- 
posed Cromwell  statue.  384 

Crystal  Palace,  the,  ii.  67,  130 

Cubitt,  meeting  with,  ii.  36 

DEMOCRACY,  Carlyle's  thoughts 
on,  i.  366 

Derby,  Lady,  her  interview  with  Car- 
lyle regarding  a  proposed  recogni- 
tion of  nis  genius,  li.  370 

Derry,  Carlyle's  address  at,  ii.  6 

'Diamond  Necklace,' its  reception  by 
the  critics,  i  69 

Dickens,  Charles.  Carlyle's  first  sight 
of,  i.  152  ;  on  his  readings,  ii.  229 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  Carlvle's  opinion 
of,  iL  366,  382 ;  his  letter  to  Car- 
lyle, 366 ;  Carlyle's  answer,  367 

Doctors,  Carlyle's  dislike  of,  ii.  401 

Donegal,  Lord  G.  Hill's  experiment 
in,  ii.  5 

D'Orsay,  Count,  interview  with,  L  136 

'  Downing  Street  and  Modern  Govern- 
ment,' li.  2<3 

Dresden,  visit  to,  ii.  191 

Duffy,  Charles  Gavan,  and  the  'Young 
Ireland '  party,  L  332 ;  Carlyle's 
opinion  of  Duffy,  340 ;  his  narrow 
escape,  '^\  ;  guest  in  Cheyne  Row, 
389 ;  meets  Carlyle  in  Dublin,  ii.  3 

Dumfriesshire,  visit  to,  L  183 

EDINBURGH,  Carlyle's    feelings 
towards,  ii.  2.52 ;  is  chosen  Rec- 
tor of  the  Univerity  of.  253  ;  his  in- 
stallation, 257 ;  l)equeaths  Craigen- 
puttock to  the  University,  2i>4 
*  Edinburgh    Review,'    Carlyle's    re- 


marks on  tappoMd  ariiole  by  ]|«- 
;     caulay  in  the,  l  164 
Ely  Cathedral,  risit  to,  L  234 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  hit  relationa 

with  Carlyle.  i.  38,  119 ;  hi^h  ap- 

preciation  of,  187 ;  risits  Carlyle  m 

London.  354 ;  lectures  in  EngUnd, 
I     860 ;  visits  Paris  and  Oxford,  375 ; 

at  Stonebense,  876  ;  hia  opinion  of 

*  Frederick.^  iL  242;    again   nsiU 

England,  a57 
England,    condition   of,    in    1842,  L 

2:W;  improved  condition  now.  241 ; 

this  partly  the  reason  of  Carlyle's 

teaching,  241 
English  language,  on  a  peculiarity  of 

the.  ii.  66  note 
Erskine,  Ralph,  reflections  on  a  biog- 
raphy of,  i.  273 
Erskine,  Thomas,  of  Linlathen,  L 100, 

ii.  79;  Carlyle's   letters  to,  i.  209. 

236,    323,  367;  ii.   15.  112,  213,  270; 

visit   to,   i.   27K;  his   letter  to  Mr. 

Carlyle,  ii.  248  ;  his  death.  333 
Europe,  thoughts  on  the  state  of.  L  370 
•  Exodus  from  Houndsditch,'  L  361 
Eyre,  Governor,  Carlvle's  opinion  of 

his  conduct.  iL    280;   and  interest 

in  his  defence,  810 

FARADAY,  Carlyle's  opinion  of 
Tyndall's  lecture  on,  ii.  312 

Fenviie  JncomprUe,  budget  of  a,  ii. 
138 

Fife,  Carlyle  takes  a  house  in,  iL  200 

Forster,  John,  his  kindness  on  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle,  iL  265 ;  his 
death,  375 

Forster,  Mr.  W.  E.,  visit  to.  at  Raw- 
don,  i.  350 ;  meets  bim  in  Ireland, 
iL5 

Foxton.  Mr.,  ii.  183 

France,  Carlyle  on  the  prospects  of, 
iL  341 

Franco-German  war,  Carlyle  on  the, 
iL  340 ;  and  the  victory  of  the  Ger- 
mans. 3-U 

Frankfurt,  visit  to,  iL  90 

Fraser,    James    (proprietor    of    the 

magazine),  Carlyle's  opinion  of  hia 

critical  faculty,    i.    HM  ;    come  to 

I      terms  about  the  leoUires  on  *  Hero 

i      Worship,'  176 

'  Frederick  the  Great.*  dawn  of  the 
history,  L  315:  studios  for.  iL  76; 
its  bcKinniuK.  107;  difficulties  with, 
146;  its  progrewi.  UJO  ;  completion 
of  the  first  two  volume*,  liO;  Urn 
comparison  with  *  Walter  Bhaody/ 


414 


Index. 


174 ;   its  success,  193  ;   publication 
of  the  third  volume,  213  ;   comple- 
tion of  the  work,  240 ;   its  transla- 
tion into  German,  241  ;   its  effect  in 
Germany,   241  ;   reception   in   Eng- 
land, 242 
French  Revolution,  Carlyle's  History 
of  the,  i.  10  ;  mishap  witli  the  MS., 
23,   29;    resolves   to   rewrite  it,  24. 
43,  45,  47 ;    progress   with,  r4 ;    its 
completion.  72  ;  nature  of  the  work, 
7G  ;  its  reception  by  contemporaries, 
80,  82 
Fripps,  Mr.,  i.  256 
Fritz,  Carlyle-s  horse,  ii.  159,  228 
Fronde,  J.    A.,    first   introduction   to 
Carlyle,  i.  390  ;   a  disciple   of   Car- 
lyle's,  ii.    152;    Carlyle's  criticisms 
on  his  work,  153  ;   on  Carlyle's  his- 
torical metho.l,  170;    become  close 
friends,  215  ;   Carlyle  gives  the  cus- 
tody of  his  wife's  Reminiscences  to, 
348 ;    and   intrusts    him   with    the 
writing  of  his  biography,  353 
Fuller,  Margaret,  meeting  with,  i.  342 
Fuller,    Margaret,    her   meeting  with 
Carl}le,  i.  342,  343,  344 

GAVAZZI,    FATHER,    Carlyle's 
opinion  of,  ii.  70 
German  Literature,  Lectures  on,  i.  85, 

88 
Germany,  projected  visit  to,  ii.  78,  82  ; 

second  tour  in,  ii.  184 
Ghent,  visit  to,  i.  226-230 
Gibbon's  '  Decline  and  Fall,'  estimate 

of,  ii.  395 
Ginx's  Baby,  ii.  339 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  on   slavery,  ii.  17 

note ;    his    valedictory    address    as 

Rector   of   Edinburgh    University, 

250 ;  Carlyle's  opinion  of  him,  285, 

364,  383 ;  "his  Irish  policy,  361 
Gloucester,   picture   of   an   inn  at,  i. 

2()7 
Goethe,  letters  to  Sterling  on,  i.  105. 

IV.2;    description   of  his  house,  ii. 

95 
Gully,  Dr.,  ii.  6S,  380 

HADDINGTON,  visit  to,  i.  276 ; 
Mrs.  Carlyle's  visit  to,  ii.  7 
Hampshire  peasantry,  letter  on  the,  i. 

381 
Hare,  Archdeacon,  his  Life  of  John 
Sterling,  i.    357 ;    Carlyle's  opinion 
of  it,  357 
Headingly,  visit  to,  i.  181 


'Heroes  and  Hero-worship,'   i.    151 
154,  158,  166,  176 

Herrnhut,  Carlyle's  opinion  of,  ii.  100 

Highland  and  Irish  shearers,  i.  277 

Hill,  Lord  George,  his  attempt  to  im- 
prove the  state  of  Ireland,  ii.  7 

Holland,  Lady,  i.  152,  253 

Holland,  Lord,  i.  152 

Homburg,  visit  to,  ii.  91 

House  of  Commons,  visit  to  the,  i. 
219 

Housebuilding  in  London,  Carlyle's 
remarks  on,  ii.  .~85 

Hudson,  the  'Railway  King,'  i.  388 

Hunt,  Leigh,  i.  117 

Huntingdon,  visit  to,  i.  235 

Huxley,  John,  ii.  256 

INDIAN  MUTINY,  remarks  on  the, 
li.  165 

Ireland,  Carlyle's  anxiety  about,  i. 
338  ;  visits  to,  339,  ii.  1  ;  sympathy 
for,  i.  346  ;  under  English  rule,  ii. 
1  ;  Lord  George  Hill's  attempt  to 
improve  its  condition,  5  ;  the  Gov- 
ernment's Irish  policy,  328 

Irish  and  Highland  shearers,  i.-  277 

Irish  Church.  Carlyle's  opinion  of  the 
disestablishment  of  the,  ii.  311 

Irving,  Edward,  Carlyle's  Reminis- 
cences of,  ii.  281 

JEFFREY,  his  opinion  of  the 
'  French  Revolution,'  i,  92  ;  on 
Carlyle  as  an  author,  112  ;  meets 
Carlyle  in  Edinburgh,  124  ;  Carlyle's 
visit  to,  278  ;  visits  Carlyle,  347 

'  Jesuitism,'  ii.  27 

'Jew  Bill,' the,  i.  358 

Jews,  Carlyle's  opinion  of  the.  ii.  384 

Jewsbury,  Miss  Geraldine,  Carlyle's 
acquaintance  with,  i.  177 

KEBLE,  JOHN,  Carlyle's  descrip- 
tion of,  ii.  210 
Kepler,  ii.  21 9 
Kew  Gardens,  amusing  incident  in,  ii. 

380 
Kildare,  description  of,  ii.  3 
Kingsley's  '  Alton  Locke,'  ii.  49 
Kirkcaldy,  visit  to,  i.  124 
Knox,    John,   Carlyle's   criticisms  on 

the  portraits  of,  ii.  356 

IABORDE,  M.,  ii.  70 
^     Landor,  Savage,  visit  to,  ii.  42 
Larkin,    Mr.,    assists    Carlyle    with 
'  Frederick,'  ii.  169 


Index. 


415 


•  Latter-day  Pamphlets,'  the  fir»tof, 

ii.  19 ;  reviews  of  them,  55 
Leoky,  Mr. .  ii.  86U 
Lectures  in  London,  Carlyle**,  L  84, 

118,  117,  119,  190,  137 
Lending  library,  agitates  for  a,  L  131 
'Letters  and  Memorials  of  Mrs.   Car-  ! 

lyle,'   Mr.    Fronde's   opinion  of,    ii. 

348 ;  John  Forster  on,  353 ;  Carlyle's  , 

anxiety  about,  400 
Lib?rty,  on,  IL  17  j 

Linlathen,  visit  to  Mr.  Erskine  at,  ii. 

79  ; 

Literature  as  a  profession,  i.  10,  40, 
70,  112,  349;  its  effects  on  Carlyle, 
iL  196  ;  its  value,  234  | 

Liverpool,  visits  to,  i.  183,  2«8 

Llandough,  South  Wales,  visit  to,  i. 
2.56  _  I 

Lockhart,  his  correspondence  with  i 
Carlyle  about  the  article  on  the  ! 
working  classes,  i.  140,  147;  his  I 
opinion  of  '  Past  and  Present,'  245     1 

*  London  and    Westminster  Review,' 

article  on  Cromwell  in,  i.  128 
London  Library,  establishment  of  the, 

i.  \M,  161  ' 

London  lions,  letter  to  his  brother  on, 

i.  152 
Luther,  on  the  localities  of,  iL  91.         i 

MACATJLAY,Carlyle'8  remarks  on 
supposed    article    by,    i.    164 ;  ; 
opinion  of  him^  869  ;  his  '  Essay  on  i 
Milton,'  368;   Trevelyan's   Life  of,  ' 
ii.  373  i 

Mackenzie,  Miss  Stuart  (Lady  Ash- 
burton),  her  marriage  to  Lord  Ash- 
burton,  ii.  195 ;  invites  Carlyle   to  } 
Mentone,  279 
Mahomet,  i.  155 

Majorities,  the  rights  of,  L  308  ■ 

Malvern,  visit  to  the  waters  at,  ii.  68 
Manche.sber,  adventure  zn,  L  127 ;  in-  j 

surrection  at,  241 
M II  burjj,  visit  to,  ii.  92  ' 

Marshall,  Mr.,  of  Leeds,  i.  143,  181, 

ii  5.1 
Mart-nean,   Harriet,  visits  Carlyle,  i. 
8} 
1  iteri  ilism,  Carlyle's  opinion  of,  iL 

Mat  lew.  Father,  described,  L  2*58         i 

M  itlock,  visit  to,  L  350 

Maurice,  Frederick  (brother-in-law  of 

John    Sterling),    his    pamphlet    on  > 

the     Thirty-nine     Art-ides,    i.    38 ;  ! 

Carlvle's  opinion  of   liim,  108;  his! 

*  Religions  of  the  World,'  34& 


Maxzini  and  London  aooietT,  I  2M; 
his  letters  to  Mrs.  Carlvle,  83S.  Skt ; 
oonventatiun  with  Carlyle,  SIS  {Mm 
temporary  triumph  in  Italy,  888; 
rerina  the  French  at  Boiiie,  887 

Melbourne,  Ljrtl,  L  150 

Meatone,  visit  to,  ii.  288 

Mi'riraee,  M.,  ii  70 

Merivale,  Herman,  his  article  on  Car* 
lyle  in  the  '  EdicburKh  Review,'  L 
IW 

Merthyr  Tydvil,  description  of,  iL  44 

Michael  Angelo,  Carlyle's  criticism  of 
his  work,  L  236 

MiU,  John  Stuart,  Carlyle's  estimate 
of,  i  21 ;  entreats  Carlvle  to  accept 
compensation  for  the  burnt  msnn- 
soript,  35  ;  is  visited  by  Carlyle,  ft:! ; 
correspondence  with  Carlyle' on  his 
article  upon  the  workin<' claMC^, 
140  ;  willing  to  publish  '  Cnartium  ' 
in  the  '  Westminster  Review,'  148 ; 
replies  to  Carlyle  on  the  Negro 
question,  iL  32 ;  severs  his  connec- 
tion. 23;  Carlyle  on  his  death,  358 ; 
and  his  Autobiography,  358 

Millais's  portrait  of  Carlyle.  ii.  395 

Millbank  Penitentiary,  visit  to,  ii.  25 

Milnes,  Monckton,  Carlyle's  intimacy 
with,  L  134,  178 

Mitchel,  John,  Carlyle's  opinion  of 
him,  L  2340 ;  the  result  of  his  work, 
341 

'  Model  Prisons,'  iL  25 

Modern  science,  Carlyle's  distrust  of, 
ii.  219 

Moffat,  Mrs.  Carlvle's  visit  to,  iL  111 

Montagu,  Basil,  his  offer  of  employ- 
ment, i.  57 

Monteagle,  Lord  (Mr.  Spring  Rioe), 
L  106 

Montrose,  remarks  on,  L  183 

Murray,  Dr.  Thomas,  L  160 


NAPOLEON,     LOL^S,     Carlyle's 
opinion  of  him,  L  3^>d,  iL  108, 

340  ;  his  visit  to  England.  148 
Nusebv,  visit  to  the  Imttle-field  of,  L 

217  ' 
Negro  question,  the,  iL  19 
NeiilH?ri».  Mr.,  Carlyle's  companion  In 

Oerniany.    iL    84;     Carlyle's    high 

appreciation  of,  103 
Newbv.  life  at.  i.  185 
NithHdale,  Mrs.  Carlyle's  ridt  loi,  tt. 

212.  2M\ 
Northbrook,  Lord,  visit  to.  iL  818 
North  Walts,  tour  in.  L  950 


416 


Index, 


O'CONNELL,  DANIEL,  i.  339 
Oratory,  Carlyle's  opinion  of,  11. 
318 
Ostend,  visit  to,  1.  233 
Owen,    the    geologist,     acquaintance 
with,  1.  233 

PANIZZI,  the  librarian,  ii.  116 
Paris,  revolution  in,  1.  365  ;  and 
the    reaction,    374;     on      Russia's 
breach  of  the  Treaty  of,  li.  343 

Parliament,  Carlyle's  opinion  of,  IL 
381 

'  Past  and  Present,'  1.  339  ;  Its  recep- 
tion, 'M4  ;  reviews  of,  353 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  receives  a  copy  of 
'Cromwell'  from  Carlyle,  1.  331; 
his  answer,  333  ;  becomes  personally 
acquainted  with  Carlyle,  369  ;  article 
in  'Spectator  '  on,  385  ;  invites  Car- 
lyle to  dinner,  11.  35  ;  his  death,  40  ; 
Carlyle's  estimate  of  his  character, 
41 

Petrie,  the  antiquarian,  meeting  with. 
11.3 

Pig  Philosophy,  ii.  33 

Political  economy,  remarks  on,  1.  340  ; 
difference  between  Christianity  and, 
11.  37 

Prag,  visit  to,  11.  189 

Prescott,  the  historian,  meeting  with, 
li.  36 

Publishers,  remarks  on,  1.  133 

Puseyism,  1.  165 


Q. 


UEEN,  the,  her  message  of  sym- 
jjathy  to  Carlyle,  ii.  373 ;  meets 
'im  at  Westminster,  333 


RADICALISM,  remarks  on,  i.  31 ; 
Carlyle's     declaration    of     war 

against  modern,  11.  19 
Redwood,  Mr.,  i.  354,  ii.  43 
Reform  Bill  of  1867,  11.  293,  398 
Religion,  Carlyle's  opinion  of,  11.  16, 

330 
Remington,  Mr.,  ii.  103 
Rhine,  description  of  the,  ii.  88 
Robertson    and    the    article    for    the 

'London  and  Westminster,'  1.  13S 
Rogers,   Carlyle's  opinion  of,   1.   171, 

344 
Rothschild,    Baron,    asks   Carlyle    to 

write  In  favour  of  the  Jew  Bill,  1. 

358 
Riigen,  visit  to,  ii.  185 
Ruskin,  John,  his  acquaintance  with 

Carlyle,    li.    307 ;    his    '  Letters  on 

Political  Economy,'  207 ;  his  '  Unto 


this  Last,'  313  ;    his  'Ethics  of  the 
Dust,'  353  ;  defends  Governor  Eyre, 
280 
Russell,    Lord    John,    and    Carlyle's  - 
'  Downing  Street  and  Modern  Gov- 
ernment, 11.  36 

SAND,  GEORGE,  her  works,  1.  176 
Schiller's  house,  description  of, 
I      11.  96 

j  Scotch  History  Chair.  1.  193 
!  Scotch  servants,  on,  11.  168 
\  Scotsbrlg,  life  at,  1.  50.  95,  125,  143, 
I      370,311,11.8,13,46,155 
Scott,   Sir  Walter,  writes  article  on, 
:      1.  103 

i  Seaforth,  visit  to  his  wife  at,  1.  311 
i  Sewell,  William,  his  article  on  Carl  vie, 
!      i.  165 

I  S.G.O.  ('the  Rev.  Lord  Sidney'),  11. 
!      314,  314  note 
j  '  Shooting  Niagara,'  publication  of,  11. 

298 
I  Sinclair,  Sir  George,  li.  201 
I  South  Wales,    invitations  to,  i.  254  ; 
!      description  of,  259 
Special  juries,  remarks  on,  i.  162;  ex- 
perience of,  175 
Speddings,   visit  to  the,  at  Keswick, 

11.  247 
'  Spiritual  Optics,'  11.  65 
Spring  Rice,  Mr.  (Lord  Monteagle),  1. 

106 
Spring  Rice,  Stephen,  1.  220 
St.  Andrews  Professorship,  the,  i.  288 
St.  Ives,  visit  to,  i.  235 
St.  Leonards,  Carlyle  accompanies  his 

wife  to,  ii.  233 
St.  Paul's,  on  the  services  at,  11.  386 
Stanley,  Dean,  11.  223  ;  his  champion- 
ship of  Bishop  Colenso,  223  ;  offers 
Westminster  Abbey  as  the  last  rest- 
ing-place   of     Carlyle,     403 ;      his 
funeral  sermon,  403 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  ii.  362 
Sterling,  John,  his  opinion  of  Carlyle, 
i.     9;     is    caught   by    the    Radical 
epidemic,  32  ;  offended  by  Carlyle's 
I      style,    34 ;    Carlyle's  letters  to,  72, 
93,    94,    105,    145,     192,     233,     243, 
283  ;  dispute  about  Goethe,  105  ;  his 
j      article  on  Carlyle  in  the  '  Westmins- 
ter Review,'  145;  bad  state  of  health, 
195;  his  'Strafford,'  196;  returns  to 
London  from  Italy,  219 ;  his  death, 
298  ;  his  last  letter  to  Carlyle,  299  ; 
Carlyle's  Life  of  him,  ii.  57 
Stonehenge,      Carlyle       accompanies 
Emerson  to,  i.  375 


Index. 


417 


•Stump  Oratory,'  ii.  36 
Sullblk,  visit  to,  L  234^  ii.  149 
Sussex,   a  week's  riding  tour  in,   L 

166 
Symons,  Dr.,  i.  256 


TEMPLAND,  life  at,  L  184,  204, 
275 

Ten  Hours' Bill,  i.  288 

Tennyson,  Carlyle's  admiration  for,  L 
16:3  ;  the  repreeentative  in  poetry 
of  Carlyle,  248  ;  ii  52 

Thames,  Carlyle's  word-picture  of  a 
scene  on  the,  L  167 

Thiers,  M.,  ii.  70 

Thirlwall,  Connop  (afterwards  Bishop 
of  St.  David's),  i.  142,  159 ;  invites 
Carlyle  to  Wales,  254;  Carlyle's 
-visit  to  him,  2G1      * 

Thurso  Castle,  ii.  201 ;  its  neighbour- 
hood, 203 

Tieck's  '  Vittoria  Accorombona,'  L 
257 

*  Times,' Carlyle  refuses  employment 
on  the,  i.  9 

Town  and  country,  on,  i.  168 

Trevelyan,  his  '  Life  of  Macaulay,' 
Carlyle's  opinion  of,  ii  373 

Tyndall,  John,  ii.  255 ;  his  lecture  on 
Faraday  at  the  Royal  Institution, 
311 ;  Carlyle's  opinion  thereof,  313 


VITTORIA  ACCOROMBONA,' 
Tieck's,  i.  257 


WALTER   8HAKDY,*    'Fwd- 
erick '  oomimred  with,  iL  174 
WatU's  portrait  of  liiroseU,  Carijk'a 

remarks  on.  ii.  :t24 
Webster,  meeting  with,  L  141 
WeUington,    Duke  of.   Carlyle's  por- 
trait of  him,   ii  ;{V:   his  funeraL 
100 
WeUh,  Mrs.  (mother  of  Mrs.  T.  Car- 
lyle), visits  her  daughter  in  Lon- 
don,  i  50;  her  death,  199 
Westminster  Abbey,  on  the  serrieea 

at,  ii.  386 
,  '  Westminster  Review,*  Sierhng's  ar« 

tide  on  Carlyle  in  the,  i  145 
j  Wilberforoe,  Bishop,  ii  37,  858 
Wilkie,  the  artist,  Carlyle's  opinion 
1     oC,i283 
Wilson,  Miss,  i.  SI 
;  Wilson,  John,  death  of,  ii  133 ;  Car- 
{      lyle's  estimate  of  him.  138 
;  Windsor  Castle,   Carlyle's  commenU 

on,  i  108 
I  Wolseley,  Sir  Garnet  (now  Lord),  hia 
interview  with  Carlyle,  ii  382 
Woolsthorpe,  visit  to,  ii  304 
Worcester,  the  battle-field  of,  i  267 
Wordsworth,   meeting    with,    i    27; 

remarks  on,  38 
Working,'  classes,  reflections  on  their 

condition,  i  138,  140,  147 
Wycherley's  Comedies,  Carlyle's  dis- 
satisfaction with,  ii.  55 

YOUNG,   ARTHUR,  his  tonr in 
Ireland,  ii.  6 
'  Young  Ireland  '  movement,  i.   332 ; 
Carlyle's  opinion  of  it,  340 


AUTHORIZED    EDITION. 


LETTERS  AND   MEMORIALS 

OF 

yane  IVelsh  Carlyle. 

Prepared  for  Publication  by  Thomas  Carlyi.e. 
Edited    by   JAMES    ANTHONY    FROUDE. 


Two  vols,,  with  Portrait^  $4.00, 
Two  vols,  in   one^  12tno^      IJHO, 


Public  interest  in  the  married  life  of  Thomas  Carlyle  has  been 
stimulated  to  a  high  pitch  by  the  revelations  of  the  "Reminis- 
cences" and  Mr.  Froude's  biography,  but  it  is  to  have  a  still  fur- 
ther excitement  in  the  "  Letters  and  Memorials  of  Mrs.  Carlyle," 
which  her  husband  annotated  and  arranged  for  publication  many 
years  ago,  and  which  are  now  issued  under  Mr.  Froude's  edi- 
torial supervision.  These  letters,  however,  as  the  readers  of  the 
♦'  Reminiscences "  were  led  to  expect,  possess  a  much  higher 
interest  and  charm  than  as  a  mere  disclosure  of  the  daily  life  and 
habits  of  the  Carlyles.  They  contain  the  records  of  the  life  and 
associations  of  one  of  the  most  sensitive  and  brilliant  of  women. 

Many  of  the  letters  are  to  Stirling  and  other  literary  men, 
whom  Carlyle's  influence  and  genius  brought  around  him,  but  the 
majority  are  to  Carlyle  himself  during  their  frequent  separations. 
Every  sentence  is  sharply  cut  and  stamped  with  the  impress  of  a 
strong  individuality — displaying  a  keen,  bright,  affectionate  nature 
— gay,  witty,  sarcastic,  tender,  pathetic,  passionate  by  turns. 
They  are  such  letters  as  only  a  woman  could  write,  forming  a 
picture  which,  for  graphic  power,  strong  human  interest,  tragic 
intensity,  and  self-effacing  devotion,  it  would  be  bard  to  match  in 
all  the  annals  of  literature. 


•,*  jFor  SaU  by  all  booksellers^  or  sent,  post-paid,  upon  reeeipt  o/priee,  ky 

CHARLES  SCRIBXER'S  SONS,   Publishers, 

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AVTHOmZED    EDlTlOy^, 


Thomas   Carlyle. 

A  History  of  the  first  Forty  Years  of  his  Life, 
1795  to  1835. 

By    JAMES   ANTHONY   FROUDE,  M.A. 

Two  Vols.,  8vo.    -    -    -    $4.00. 

Cheap  Edition,  two  wis,  in  one,  81.50. 

Mr.  Froude  has  given  to  the  public  one  of  those  books  which 
must  always  be  the  rarest  and  most  valuable  in  biographical  lit- 
erature— the  life  of  one  of  the  really  dominant  personalities  of  an 
epoch,  written  by  a  skilful  and  fearless  hand,  under  circumstances 
which  give  it  the  value  of  autobiography,  and,  while  the  personal, 
as  well  as  the  literary,  influence  of  its  subject  is  still  potent. 
If  the  opinion  of  a  high  authority  is  well  founded — that  Carlyle 
is  to  be,  to  the  view  of  the  future,  the  foremost  literary  figure  of 
our  time—this  biography  will  give  to  coming  students  such  a  faith, 
ful  and  vivid  personal  picture  as  has  never  accompanied  a  great 
name  before,  unless,  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  Lockhart's**  Life 
of  Scott." 


"  History  never  runs  thin  from  Mr.  Fronde's  pen,  and  here  is  certainly  a  solid  and 
picturesque  story  of  the  great  Scotchman's  life.  It  is  the  story  of  Carlyle's  appren- 
ticeship to  literature,  the  picture  of  a  stout,  brave,  weird,  masterful  struggle  for  bread 
and  fame." — Literary    World. 

"  In  this  volume  we  have  a  portrait  of  a  wonderful  Man.  Thomas  Carlyle  was 
fortunate  in  his  choice  of  a  biographer.  Mr.  Froude  understands  his  man  and  the  pub- 
lic for  which  he  is  writing,  and  he  has  been  honest  towards  both.  It  is  seldom  that  we 
have  taken  up  a  Memoir  and  become  so  thoroughly  fascinated." — National  Baptist, 

"This  book  will  prove  extremely  useful  to  the  student  of  Carlyle;  it  lights  up  much 
that  was  obscure,  both  in  the  man,  and  in  his  work." — N,    Y.  Sun. 

"  This  work  is  a  classic  and  will  go  with  Carlyle  and  hja  fame  to  posterity.  It  ia 
Irrought  in  a  masterly  fashion." — Critic. 


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AUTHORIZED    EDITIOX. 


Carlyle's  Reminiscences, 

EDITED  BY 

JAMES    ANTHONY    FROUDE. 


One  Vol.,  8vo.    -       -       -       _       »    Price,  $2.50. 
CHEAP   EDITION      -    '  60  cents. 


Mr.  Froude  has  given  to  the  public  one  of  those  books  which 
must  always  be  the  rarest  and  most  valuable  in  biographical  liter- 
ature-^the  life  of  one  of  the  really  dominant  personalities  of  an 
epoch,  written  by  a  skillful  and  fearless  hand,  under  circumstances 
which  give  it  the  value  of  autobiography,  and  while  the  personal, 
as  well  as  the  literary,  influence  of  the  subject  is  still  potent. 

"If  it  were  ten  times  as  long  as  it  is,  if  Mr.  Froude  had  given  u«  a  dozen  instead  ol 
two  volumes,  no  one  could  ever  weary  of  reading;  the  work.  The  letters  written  by  C«l* 
lyle  are  alone  absorbing  in  the  interest  they  awake,  and  in  the  entertainment  they  aibnL 
They  give,  if  not  a  clearer,  at  least  a  more  vivid  portrait  of  h  s  peculiar  pervioahty,  dna 
any  biographer  could  possibly  give.  And  they  are  ver>'  spicy  reading  •  •  •  Twil  tb* 
reader  will  find  the  work  supremely  interesting  is  beyond  the  possibility  of  doobc,  and  »« 
are  equally  positive  that  he  will  re-read  them  as  often  a.s  he  craves  a  vigonNU  and  rnfush 
ing  menul  tonic." — Boston  Courier, 

••Nothing  thatCarlyle  has  published,  since  "Sartor  Resartus**  surprised  dw  worid  la 
1836,  is  equal  to  it  in  natural  simplicity,  in  the  full  utterance  of  the  heart,  in  dear  brishl. 
personal  pictures  of  contemporary  life.  The  key  to  Carlylc's  whole  career  is  found  in  \m 
brief  memories  of  his  father:  the  stor>'  of  his  leginnin^s  at  authon^hip  and  of  the  Steps 
by  which  he  went  on  from  book  to  book  is  told  in  his  efforts  t  >  express  what  Mrs.  Oriyfo 
was  to  him  :  his  sketchesof  Edward  Irving  and  of  Ix>rd  Jeffrey  account  (or  panif M  Ml 
his  own  life  which  could  only  be  related  by  himself  :  and  the  short  glimpf>e«ol  his  sochU 
interviews  with  Southey  and  Wordsworth  at  Sir  Henrv  Taylor's  h-j«pitab)e  hou*c  sbo« 
what  his  powers  of  discrimination  were,  when,  in  the  prime  of  lif  ,  he  mingled  freely  with 
men  who  were  his  peers.     Altogether  this  book  is  very  precious."— /»«wA<»*»  Hrrmld. 

"It  is  a  curious  volume,   rich  in  autobiography,  abounding  in  aoDec'lole.  full  of  d» 
quaintness,  tenderness,  humor,  frankness  and  caustic  quality  of  CaHyle's  man; 
queries." — Ne^v  York  Tribune . 

"  Nothing  that  Carlyle  wrote  is  of  greater  interest  than  th  s  Collection  of  1 
*  *  *  they  bring  us  face  t  j  face  with  Carlyle  himself  revealing  his  s'l       * 
sll  his  eccentricities." — N.    Y.   Evening  Pott. 


*♦*  For  SaU  by  all  hockselUrs,  or  tent,  /ost/aU^  mftm  rtctipi  «/"/»*».  h 

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743  AND  745  Broadway,  N«w  Youu 


AUTHORIZED  AMERICAN  EDITIONS. 

fnnWs  l^toriral  Works. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

From  the   Fall  of  Woolsey   to  the   Death  of  Elizabeth. 


THE  COMPLETE  WOBK  IN  TWELVE  VOLUMES. 


By  JAMES   ANTHONY   FROUDE,  M-  A. 


Mr.  Froude  is  a  pictorial  historian,  and  his  skill  in  description  and  full- 
ness of  knowledge  make  his  work  abound  in  scenes  and  passages  that  are 
almost  new  to  the  general  reader.  We  close  his  pages  with  unfeigned  re- 
gret, and  we  bid  him  good  speed  on  his  noble  mission  of  exploring  the 
sources  of  English  history  in  one  of  its  most  remarkable  periods.  —  Brtf- 
ish  Quarterly  Review. 

THE  NEW  LIBRARY  EDITION. 

Extra  cloth,  gilt  top,  and  uniform  in  general  style  with  the  re-issue  of 
Mommsen's  Rome  and  Curtius's  Greece.     Co7nplete  in  12  vols.  i2mo, 
in  a  box.     Sold  only  in  sets.     Price  per  set,  ;^  18.00. 
Note.    The  old  Library^  Chelsea,  and  Popular  Editions  will  be  discontintied.   A  few 

sets  and  single  volumes  can  still  be  supplied. 


SHORT  STUDIES  ON  GREAT  SUBJECTS. 

THE  NEW  LIBRARY  EDITION.  Three  vols.  i2mo. 
Uniform  in  General  Style  with  the  New  Library  Edi- 
tion of  the  History  of  England.      Per  vol. $1.50 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    IRELAND 

During-  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Three  vols.  i2mo.     New   Library  Edition.     Per  vol $1.50 


*4(.*  The  above  books  for  sale  by  all  booksellers.^  or  will  be  sent,  post  or  ex 
fress  charges  paid,  upon  receipt  of  the  price  by  the  Publishers, 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York 


J3y    Ai*mii|e>eineiit    i^ltli    tli©     Author 

Th©  Best  Biography  of  the  Greatest  of  the  BomaBs. 

CjESAR:     A   Sketch. 

r.Y 

JAMES    ANTHONY    FROUDE.  M.A. 

Library    Edition.    8vo.    Oloth.    Ollt   Top.    fa.60. 

/»OPfJIjAR    RDTTTON   rfrom   same   plates^,  12mo,  7»  Confa 

Uniform  tet'h  P'fntlnr  EtHH/*n  nf  Frmitt^a  HiMUirp 
of  England,  and  Khnrt  Studteit. 

There  is  no  historical  writer  of  onr  time  who  can  riral  Mr.  Fronds  in  vivid 
aelineation  of  character,  grace  and  clearness  of  style  and  elegant  antl  solid 
scholarship.  In  his  Li/e  of  Cceaar,  all  these  qoalities  appear  in  their  follaat 
perfection,  resulting  in  a  fascinating  narrative  which  will  be  road  with  kaan 
-^slight  by  a  multitade  of  readers,  and  will  enhance,  if  possible,  Mr.  Froada'a 
brilliant  reputation. 


CRITICAL    NOTICES. 

'*  The  book  is  charmingly  written,  and,  on  the  whole,  wisely  written.  There  •»«  msay 
admirable,  really  noble,  passages  ;  there  are  hundreds  of  pages  which  few  liv^nK  men 
^could  match.  *  *  *  The  political  life  of  Cses.tr  is  explained  with  singular  lucidity, 
and  with  what  seems  to  us  remarkable  fairness,  'llie  horrible  conditwn  o<  Roaus 
society  under  the  rule  of  the  magnates  is  painted  with  startling  power  and  briUMmce  t^ 
coloring. — Atlantic  Monthly. 

"  Mr.  Froude's  latest  work,  '•  Cicsar,"  is  affluent  of  his  most  distinctive  bruits. 
Nothing  that  he  has  written  is  more  brilliant,  more  incisive,  more  inlereUing.  •  •  • 
He  combines  into  a  compact  and  nervous  narrative  all  that  is  known  oi  the  persmaL 
social,  political,  and  military  life  of  Caesar  ;  and  with  his  sketch  of  Oesar,  includes  other 
brilliant  sketches  of  the  great  men,  his  friends  or  rivals,  who  contcmporsncooily  »itk 
him  formed  the  principal  figures  in  the  Roman  world."— //^r^r**  AfimtAfy. 

"This  book  is  a  most  fascinating  biography,  and  is  by  far  the  best  acooonl  of  JultttS 
Caesar  to  be  found  in  the  Flnglish  lan^ua^e." — London  Standard, 

"  It  is  the  best  biography  of  the  greatest  of  the  Romans  we  have,  and  It  is  in  SOOM 
respects  Mr.  Froude's  best  piece  of  historical  writing." — Hartford  Comrmnt, 

Mr.  Froude  has  given  the  public  the  best  of  all  recent  books  on  tbe  lifc.  <  lllf  let 
and  career  of  Julius  Caesar."— /%i/<».  Eve.  Bulletin. 


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LIFE    OF 

Lord    Lawrence 

BY 

R.    BOSWORTH    SMITH,   M.A., 

LATE   FELLOW   OF   TRINITY   COLLEGE  ;    ASSISTANT    MASTER   AT    HARROW 

SCHOOL. 


With  Maps  and  Portraits,  2  vols,,  Svo,  $5M0, 


"  As  a  biography,  the  work  is  an  inthralling  one,  rich  in 
anecdotes  and  incidents  of  Lord  Lawrence's  tempestuous  nature 
and  beneficent  career  that  bring  into  bold  rehef  his  strongly- 
marked  and  almost  colossal  individuality,  and  rich  also  in  in- 
stances of  his  courage,  his  fortitude,  his  perseverance,  his  self- 
control,  his  magnanimity,  and  in  the  details  of  the  splendid 
results  of  his  masterful  and  masterly  policy.  .  .  .  We  know 
of  no  work  on  India  to  which  the  reader  can  refer  with  so  great 
certainty  for  full  and  dispassionate  information  relative  to  the 
government  of  the  country,  the  characteristics  of  its  people,  and 
the  fateful  events  of  the  forty  eventful  years  of  Lord  Lawrence's 
Indian  career." — Harper's  Magazine. 

**  John  Lawrence,  the  name  by  which  the  late  Viceroy  of  India 
will  always  be  best  known,  has  been  fortunate  in  his  biographer, 
Mr.  Bosworth  Smith,  who  is  an  accomplished  writer  and  a  faith- 
ful, unflinching  admirer  of  his  hero.  He  has  produced  an  enter- 
taining as  well  as  a  valuable  book  ;  the  general  reader  will 
certainly  find  it  attractive  ;  the  student  of  recent  history  will 
discover  in  its  pages  matters  of  deep  interest  to  him." — London 
Daily  Telegraph. 

*^*  For  sale  by  all  booksellers^  or  sent,  post-paid^  upon  receipt  of  price ^  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  Publishers,  ' 

743  AND  745  Broadway,  New  York. 


